


Crackernuts

by LucyCrewe11 (Raphaela_Crowley)



Series: Narnian Fairy Tales [4]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, F/M, Fairy Tale Curses, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fairy Tale Style, Fractured Fairy Tale, No Incest, Romance, They Were All Born In Narnia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 63,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25393942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raphaela_Crowley/pseuds/LucyCrewe11
Summary: A Narnian Retelling of the fairy-tale Kate Crackernuts: Lucy, along with her hideously deformed sister, travels to the Narnian castle of Cair Paravel where she must uncover a dark secret that may be putting the life of the Crown Prince's younger brother in fatal danger.
Relationships: Edmund Pevensie/Lucy Pevensie, Peter Pevensie/Susan Pevensie
Series: Narnian Fairy Tales [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1847062
Kudos: 5





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Written January and February, 2010, as a request.

_PROLOGUE_

The most amazing thing about the great hall in the castle of the fairy-realm is that one simply cannot be sure if one is indoors or out of them.

It is rather like a garden, covered in beautiful flowers of all kinds. Roses grow clinging to the walls of white marble and transparent diamond (most fairies of the royal bloodline use diamond instead of glass; glass is for the poor, the fairy peasants, the lower-class servants, and humans as well); miniature sunflowers in perfect rings or garlands. And a gold-and-silver flower unseen in the human realm, its petals glowing with an almost supernatural brilliance, rests in many a courtier's hand.

Emerald grass grows between the flawless marble titles, though there is not seemingly a single crack for the sleek blades to come up through, and somehow it does not make it look like a ruin. It only makes it even more of a marvel.

The queen of the fairies (for there is always a queen, even when there is no king) has her throne on a high dais made of solid gold inlaid with every sort of sapphire imaginable. There are sapphires so dark that they are almost black, sapphires so light that they shimmer almost like turquoise, and some so regal-looking that they twinkle like indigo. The throne itself is silver through and through, without a hint of iron (fairies do not much fancy iron) in its unblemished mix.

The scepter-or wand, whichever you would best like to call it-in the queen's hand is shaped and coloured like a peacock's feather, with amethysts and emeralds cut in the shape of the sort of ivy that can commonly be seen growing on the old bricks of many a university intertwining around it.

On the day this story began, the human prince of Narnia saw all of these splendours for himself, but did not take them in. He was uneasy, frightened.

Ever so slowly, he approached the queen on her throne and bowed down to her. She was tall for a fairy, at almost six feet, and her throne made her seem even higher up. Being only a nine year old boy at the time, it was all he could do to keep his teeth from chattering.

Peering down, the great fairy queen took him in. His clothes were very fine, made of strong, kingly fabric, but his tunic and short dark hair were ruffled from the trip over. She suspected he had ridden all the way alone on his own horse.

"Prince Edmund, does anyone know where you are?" she asked him.

"No, your Majesty," he said, wanting to look down at his boots, forcing himself to look up at the queen. "I've-I've come by myself."

"And why have you come all this way?" the queen wanted to know.

"I thought we could..." his throat went dry, and he almost decided against his resolve. Remembering what was truly at stake, he mustered up his courage. "...I thought we could make a bargain." Really, he was hoping more for an out-right favor, but such a thing would have been laughable within the proud fairy-court in those days. Bargaining was second best, it was a way to still get what he needed. The cost might be dreadful, though.

"What ails you, little prince?" Her tone was kind; did he dare to hope?

Watching her fingers curl around the stem of her wand, clinging as closely as the faux-ivy, he swallowed hard and told her of his family's trouble.

The fairy queen listened silently, taking in each word, gesture, eye twitch, and quietly making up her mind. She didn't much like humans, she thought, but Narnia's younger prince was slightly less bothersome than most. And he was desperate, he _needed_ her help. And she, being an such important person, lived for moments when she was needed. Not because she particularly cared for helping people, more so because she enjoyed being powerful while others were not.

"Please, your majesty," Edmund said. "Can you help him?"

He was such a pitiful little child, thought the queen, taking a moment more of speechless thought before answering. She would help him; but it would be a bargain, and he'd have to keep his own end of it.

As he listened to the details, Edmund nodded grimly, perhaps not realizing back then just how much he would suffer over this deal with the fairy-court. Even if he had known, he still might have thought it was worth it.

"You will accept my conditions?" The queen had beautiful eyes that could change colour at will and they flickered from hazel to green as she arched one of her slim, alabaster brows. A golden curl slipped from under the weight of her heavy crown-of-many-gemstones and slapped softly against her white cheek.

She looked stunningly beautiful, more beautiful than most human women would ever even aspire to become, but she also looked alarming and dangerous.

The fairy queen is rather like a wolf, Edmund decided when he thought it over later on in his life, striking to look at, and fearsome to stand close to. Every once in a while, he half expected her to throw back her gorgeous head and howl at the moon.

"Yes,"

"You understand that there will be no early backing out." she warned him. "No following the rules for a year or so and then changing your mind because you're tired and do not wish to appear in our great court any longer."

"Yes, yes," Edmund almost forgot who he was talking to and lost his temper; he hated being spoken to like a four year old.

"You are young, little prince," said the fairy queen testily. "The minds of the young change on a whim."

"Mine doesn't." said Edmund defiantly.

"Good, then we shall have no misunderstandings, I'm pleased." She took something out of a brown leather satchel she had on the dais by her throne's side and held it tightly in her hand.

Edmund wondered what it was. She had promised to help him, but she hadn't said how she would go about it. The thing in her hand was a flask of some sort, he could tell, it had to have something to do with him.

"Here I am, before the court," The queen waved her hand towards the lovely, velvet-clad, fair-headed fairy wenches who were her ladies and at the young men with sandy-coloured hair, dressed in onyx-lined, dark purple tunics who were mostly their sons and brothers. "keeping my end of the bargain I did make on this very hour, two strokes before midnight itself,"

Edmund's eyes shifted over from the flask in her fist to the gold-and-cherry-wood grandfather clock on her left. So it wasn't even midnight yet. That was good. His father wouldn't be along to wake him for almost seven hours; that gave him time to ride back. He didn't want King Frank mixed up in this mess, it had nothing to do with him. Preferably, he'd rather his elder brother, Peter, know nothing of it either, but he wasn't sure how he would explain getting the flask full of whatever it was without telling him about the fairies.

Maybe he could lie. He could say he found it. Just sort of lying around in the forest. The problem was, if it was some sort of liquid, Peter would probably have to drink it for it to have any effect, and he wasn't going to drink something when he didn't even know where it had come from. Still, in the state the crown prince was currently in, Edmund could over-power him and force him to drink it. It was an uncomfortable, very sobering thought, that he, the younger, the smaller, the currently less developed prince, could be stronger than his tall, brave, even somewhat famous, brother. It made him feel guilty about all the times he wished he were.

The queen was still going on with her speech: "And I hereby give him, with the good-will of the fairy-court in its entirety, this flask."

With shaking hands, Edmund took the golden-corked bottle from her smooth, almost metallically so, fingers. It looked like it was made of glass, but since the queen of the fairies would have never used such a vulgar material as glass, it was obviously made from diamond. Inside, swished around dark red liquid as profound as blood.

"Thank you, your Majesty," Edmund remembered to murmur respectfully, "but what _is_ it?"

"What you hold in your hands, young prince of Narnia, is a magic cordial made from the juice of the fire-flower, which only a person with fairy-blood in them could get their hands on." The queen looked proud of her knowledge. She had been well educated in the court, even before she was queen, back when she was only a princess, and she loved to show it. "One drop will cure any injury or illness."

"Thank you," he said again, caught between restrained jubilation and a bit of apprehension over what he had had to give in return. Still, in the great scheme of things, wasn't it only such a very small thing he had promised? And look what the queen was giving him in return! "May I be excused, your Majesty?"

"Not yet," she ordered. "You will stay and eat and drink with us first."

"There's to be no..." he stammered, his nose wrinkling involuntarily. "...er... _dancing_ tonight, is there? Not yet?"

She laughed. Even her laugh sort of reminded him of a wolf's howl, when he really thought about it. "Not tonight, little prince."

Three of the ladies, sewing golden thread into royal-blue tapestries for the fairy library, glanced up at him and giggled.

Edmund masked his relief. "I really do need to get back to Cair Paravel before-"

The fairy queen was glowering slightly and the brother of her favorite lady-in-waiting was furrowing his brows. Ah, they would not let him go before he had taken their hospitality. He had been a fool to assume otherwise.

Under normal circumstances, Edmund might have been a little nervous about eating fairy food, after all the superstitions he'd heard regarding the stuff, but since he knew he would have to come back anyway, he figured he might as well eat. They had as tight a hold on him as they wanted, no need to make it any better or worse with their food and drink.

He had something like sugar-dew to drink in a goblet of white china. There was a chip on the rim and he cut his lower lip, leaving a small blood-mark behind.

A round silver box with the image of a snowflake surrounded by a swarm of elegant dragon-flies engraved on the lid was handed to him. A present?

As gingerly as boy of nine can move his fingers-which is almost not at all-he removed the lid and looked inside. Cloth tied together with a green silk ribbon, furthering his suspicions that it was an unrequested present of some kind. Why she would give him a present freely when he'd had to bargain for the cordial was puzzling, but he untied the ribbon to get a better look anyway.

Ah, not exactly a present, more hospitality. But it was a good kind of hospitality; the box was filled with his favorite sweet, Turkish Delight.

Forcing a smile at the queen and her ladies, Edmund thanked them with the proper decorum that even a young prince knows is necessary to survive in any court-human or otherwise-and ate a good share of it. Once he-and they-were satisfied, he bowed and turned to leave, clutching the diamond flask of magic cordial to his chest.

"Wait a moment, little prince." the queen ordered, not too harshly.

He turned around and faced her, surprised that there was a present after all; a son of one of the ladies was handing him a small copper-sheathed dagger.

"A peace offering," explained the queen. "between Narnia and our realm."

"I did not ask-" Edmund couldn't stop himself from beginning to say, dumbfounded.

"You did not," Her voice was almost kindly, but it had a chill undertone to it that made his spine feel cold. "but I give it freely, provided _you_ remember your debt to us."

"Yes, your Majesty." How could he forget? With all that had hung in the balance. He hadn't realized Narnia, too, hung from the same beam so to speak, she was making sure he understood that.

And so began the series of events that fill this tale.


	2. The two princesses of Ettinsmoor

In Ettinsmoor, a land north of Narnia, there lived, in a castle made of well-polished gray stone that shone like silver when the afternoon sun hit it just so, a king.

Now this king had married the daughter of a Narnian knight and from that marriage was given a princess, Princess Susan of Ettinsmoor. When the princess was still quite young, her mother, now queen of Ettinsmoor, died from an unfortunately severe case of pneumonia.

To comfort himself in his grief, and to give Ettinsmoor a new queen, the king, after a period of mourning, went looking for a suitable wife. Although he had fancied he would simply wed another Narnian of noble blood since both countries were friends and allies anyway, he ended up marrying, instead, a woman on the southern border of his kingdom who, while having a fine title, had lost nearly all of her wealth thanks to the ridiculous bets involving large sums of money her late husband had gambled with.

The man was something of a nitwitted numbskull and had found a way to turn nearly everything into a game of chance. Not only the usual centaur races or annual jousts, either. Would viscount so-and-so's manservant fall off of his ladder while repairing the cathedral's stain-glass roof? Would this or that duke's dog get hit by a passing fruit cart? Would a talking mouse get offended on such and such day? All of this he turned into scheming.

Worse still, he _always_ bet wrong. The old manservant retired and a swifter, younger man replaced him, not tumbling down from the roof even when he 'accidentally' banged into the ladder in passing. The owner of the cart managed to avoid the little dog. And the talking mouse in question was, conveniently, out of the kingdom that day visiting friends in Telmar.

At any rate, the foolish nobleman had left his wife, the Duchess Helen, and her young daughter, the Grand Duchess Lucy, in dire straights. The king had come into their lives like a gallant knight in shinning armour, thundering up on his horse to save the day in spite of the fact that he was no longer quite as young as he had once been.

The chance to be queen had no more than gleamed distantly at the duchess before she grasped at it with both hands and quickly made her affections towards the king as transparently obvious as glass itself. Before anyone could even begin to gossip over the duchess's intrigues and run-ins with the king, she was already his wife, and her little daughter's rank changed dramatically from Grand Duchess, to out-right Princess Lucy of Ettinsmoor.

Ettinsmoor, with its king of an improved countenance since his remarriage, its pretty-faced queen, and two charming princesses, seemed to have acquired the perfect royal family. However, trouble and envy arose in the heart of their new queen one afternoon as she and her husband took a stroll in the royal woods, watching their daughters-age twelve and eight-play together in the near-by brook.

The two princesses laughed and played, splashing each other and dangling their feet in the cool water by turn. The pair had become dear friends from the moment their parents introduced them; Princess Susan found it hard not to like her sweet-faced little sister who ran about the castle playfully pointing excitedly at things, and Princess Lucy liked how wise and motherly her new stepsister was, how she knew all sorts of things and could answer most of her questions about life at the castle.

"I wanted to run something by you," the king told his wife, walking with his hands joined behind his back. "I've gotten an offer of marriage today from an Archenland marquis, Susan for his eldest son."

"How nice," the queen smiled at her husband conversationally.

"I've turned him down," the king informed her shortly. "I was wondering if perhaps I might offer them Lucy instead, when she's older, of course."

At this, Queen Helen's eyes darkened a shade and she frowned at him. "Why?"

"You don't want your daughter to marry the son of a marquis?" asked the king, seeming genuinely puzzled by her reaction. "I thought you liked marquises."

"I _do_ like marquises!" she exclaimed, nearly stamping her foot in irritation.

"All right, all right, there's no need to shout, sweetheart." said the king, placing a hand on Queen Helen's shoulder. "Whatever is the matter?"

"Is there something the matter with the boy?" demanded the queen, staring at her husband with an intense glower. "Some reason you don't wish him to wed your child, so that you would rather have my poor girl stuck with him?"

"Nothing whatsoever is the matter with the boy or with Lucy, darling," the king reassured her in a gentle tone. "and you know I think of both of the princesses as _our_ daughters, I don't see yours and mine."

"Then why-"

"I only thought our Susan might do better than a nobleman for a husband, she might have a crown prince or a king for all her potential."

Defensive for her daughter, the queen asked why that was.

"Well, you've seen her," the king stammered, thinking it had always been so obvious that no one need actually say it. "She's only twelve and already young men-"

Queen Helen drowned out his voice for a moment, glancing over at the princesses lying breathless in the muddy marsh-grass near the brook. Lucy was resting with her whole back in the mud, not seeming to care if she soiled her blue muslin-and-silver-thread, cuff-sleeved dress, while Susan lifted herself gingerly onto the patches where the grass was thicker so as not to ruin her similarly-cut grown of brown taffeta apart from getting the bottom edges rather damp.

Squinting, Helen couldn't help wondering how she hadn't seen it before; Susan was absolutely lovely, even beautiful, and her poor little cherub-faced Lucy was only adequate-rather nice to look at, but nothing special.

From that day on, the queen began to have a secret grudge against Princess Susan because of her potential; she saw the hussy as stealing whatever chances her own daughter had of future attention from men of good rank, and felt she was doing so on purpose.

If the king believes Susan could marry a crown prince, she thought bitterly to herself, then he would have thought the same for Lucy if she had been the only princess in the Ettinsmoor court without that vain ninny hovering about.

At any rate, she refused to promise her daughter to the son of the marquis, and continued to nurse her distain over the matter.

Years went by; Lucy turned thirteen and her sister, seventeen. The pair were still the best of friends, as close as if they were real sisters, despite being vastly different from one another.

Princess Susan was a prim, demure, stately lady of etiquette who took a great deal of pride in her appearance and enjoyed attending court events. She looked forward to the balls and masques Princess Lucy would wrinkle her little button nose over, usually finding she had more fun on days when there was nothing planed and she could do as she pleased, gathering flower blossoms and making wreaths to wear on her head, passing by the large window of the castle library that over-looked the orchard and pleasure gardens, where she might wave to Susan who was surely sitting there with a dictionary, quizzing herself on difficult words and phrases.

One early twilit evening in the autumn, when Lucy was wearing a faded daisy-chain instead of blossoms, gathering dry red leaves as a sort of game, peeking up at the half-light in the pinkish sky through holes in them, her mother approached her.

"Hullo, Mum." Lucy turned and smiled at Queen Helen, surprised to find that, rather than smiling back at her, the queen was shooting a resentful glance at the library window. "What's wrong?"

"Your sister's getting very uppity and vain, don't you think?" she said coldly.

Lucy giggled, not quite catching the full force of her mother's serious tone. Susan had always been uppity and vain, it was nothing new. It was sort of hard _not_ to be vain when you couldn't take two steps without tripping over a courtier's son dying of love for you. Or when people were writing love-poems for your namesake comparing your hair to a raven's wing and your face to the evening star. But, then, Susan wasn't _wickedly_ vain; Lucy didn't expect to see her standing in front of a magic mirror asking who was the fairest of them all any time soon.

"It doesn't upset you?" Queen Helen asked.

Lucy's brow crinkled, the drooping wreath slipping lower on her forehead. "Why would it upset me?"

Her mother didn't answer the question. "I'll bet she wouldn't be so confident if she wasn't the pretty centre of attention all the time,"

She didn't understand why her mother would talk like this about sweet, gentle Susan. Fevers were known to make people rave and rant about strange things they would never otherwise utter; was her mother unwell? There had been a slight chill going around lately, three of the serving-maids had supposedly caught it and were invalid for a week or so.

"Are you all right, Mum?" asked Lucy, to be sure.

She didn't hear Helen murmur, "That girl needs taking down a peg or two," under her breath, but she did hear her say in a clearer, more lucid voice, "I'm quite fine, dear, I shall go in now and get out of this damp air. You shouldn't stay out much longer yourself."

"Susan wouldn't let me anyways, she always comes to fetch me after a while." Lucy knew her elder sister would place her heavy word-book down with a thud when she realized how dark it was getting, and would order her to come in at once. Indeed, Susan had looked up and was watching her from the other side of the window already.

The queen muttered something and shuffled off; scraping her fine, ruby-coloured satin slippers on the white shell-rock pathway that led to one of the castle's side doors.

Afterwards, Lucy always said she felt like a fool for not grasping what her mother truly meant. It wasn't really her fault, she had always been one to give people the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes she wondered if she had known her mother's bitter words would turn into cruel action, would she have been able to stop it? But, of course, she never could know what would have happened. Only what _did_ happen.

And what happened was that, two strokes after midnight, the queen quietly stole out of the royal master bedchamber she shared with the king, donned a fine riding habit of pale green silk, her finest moon-coloured traveling gloves, and went down into the stable.

She got her horse tacked up properly on her own, struggling over the girths on the bottom of the saddle, but refusing to allow herself to wake the dozing head-groom and ask for assistance.

Digging her heels into her dapple-gray horse's side, she pressed onwards, northern bound towards a tundra-like meadow named Charn on which rested a palace made entirely of ice. Snow always fell thickly around it and the walls never thawed. The mistress of the ice palace was a strange creature decended from giants; being over seven feet tall herself. She was rumored to have some fairy-blood in her, but supposedly even the most mischievous of the fairy-folk wanted nothing to do with her. And it was probably just as well, for some called her a witch. In fact, although her given name was Jadis, she was most often called by other names, mostly titles: The snow queen, the ice countess, the winter woman, the windy enchantress, and the White Witch.

Perhaps Helen truly did have a touch of fever mixed in with her jealousy, considering her reckless and foolhardy actions; seeking help from the White Witch of all persons. And for what? Not because she was in dire-straights, but because she wanted to spoil the beauty of a girl she was meant to love as a daughter. It was madness, so she must have been mad.

The first things to greet the mentally-unwell queen at the palace gates were the White Witches dogs. Or, at least, Helen thought they were dogs until she got a better look at them and their teeth and paws, gathering, not without some unease, that they were wolves.

Most of the wolves seemed unable to speak the speech of humans, except for the pack leader, a handsomer, stronger-looking wolf with a rather intelligent gleam in his evil eyes.

"Who are you?" he snarled at her.

"Queen Helen of Ettinsmoor, sir wolf," she lifted her skirt, feeling the cold air on her stockings which suddenly didn't seem thick enough, and curtsied. "I wish to speak to the snow queen."

"I am Maugrim," the wolf told her. "I serve the one you call the snow queen. We call her Mistress Jadis."

Even in her crazed state of mind, the queen almost lost her nerve and had to will herself to be calm. "May I be granted an audience with her, Sir Maugrim the wolf?"

"Come," said Maugrim, leading her up a set of steps that were icy but somehow managed not to be slippery, all except for the last step, which she did stumble on slightly.

"So the queen of Ettinsmoor comes to visit me," said a voice like a the coldest biting winter wind.

Queen Helen found herself in a grand throne room, sparkling like crystal, though she could not remember entering it, only climbing those few front steps.

Jadis was more alarming than she'd thought she would be; her intense ice-blue eyes, her long, tightly woven hair, and the sleek silvery wand she held in her pale-as-snow hands.

All out in a rush, knowing not to waste the time of a lady who was all but a giantess and kept a pack of wolves as pets and slaves, the queen told her why she had come and how deeply the beauty and vanity of her husband's daughter distressed her.

"The harpy will ruin any chance my daughter has," sulked the queen. "no man will want her after seeing how beautiful Princess Susan is. Worse, my poor Lucy wont fight for any rights she might secure because for some unfathomable reason, she adores her so-called sister and will bring no harm upon her."

Under most circumstances, Jadis would have laughed the queen out of her palace and sent her away with nothing more than a good case of frost-bite. Or, if she was especially angry, she would scream at her and tell her wolves to chase the stupid Ettinsmoor royal out of her dominion. As it was, however, Jadis had happened to over-hear someone say that the king of Ettinsmoor had a daughter bonnier than the ice countess and felt a bit slighted herself.

There had always been people who feared her, but never people who found her looks at all lacking in anything until now. It had been a while ago, and as she had more important things to do than to sit around seething over the matter like the goose of a queen Ettinsmoor had gotten itself did, she had mostly forgotten about it. Remembering it now, she figured it wouldn't do her own ego any harm to wreck a bit of the lass's prettiness. Not to mention it would get the stupid queen to stop blubbering about her 'poor daughter' for a half a second.

"I can do something about the princess," said Jadis, sighing and glancing over towards Maugrim who stood still as a statue by the entrance of the throne room. "Send her to me tomorrow morning, see to it that she has not had any breakfast before coming, and I will take away her beauty."

"Thank you," said the queen, actually bowing to the witch, so full of gratitude that she would have done anything to stay in the enchantress's good favor at that moment. "I shall send her."

Pushing her poor horse nearly to exhaustion to do so, Queen Helen rode back to her castle, arriving just before dawn. She left her horse shaking with cold-sweat in his stable, certain the grooms would attend to the worn-out creature when they awoke.

An hour before she would normally wake up, she heard her husband get out of bed, unaware that his wife had ever left it, getting ready for an early morning meeting with the royal army over some annual matter.

Good, she thought to herself as she pretended to be asleep, the king will not be at breakfast, the meeting will keep him.

At the polished-to-a-mirror-shine oak-wood breakfast table in the dinning hall, the queen proceeded to take her regular seat and waited for the princesses to join her.

Lucy came in first, chipper and high-spirited as ever, her dress a simple-cut thing of cerulean silk-its skirt a little bit wrinkled-she had simply pulled out of the back of her closet without giving it much thought. She greeted her mother and sat down, taking a steaming bread-roll from the basket.

A few seconds later, Susan arrived, a little more neatly attired in a dress of rose-coloured brocade. "Good morning,"

Before her stepdaughter could sit down and have so much as a bite to eat, Helen said, "Child, before breakfast you will run an errand for me,"

"Do you need me to send a letter to one of your ladies-in-waiting's relatives again?" Susan inquired somewhat airily, a little annoyed, but willing enough.

"No, I need you to take your horse and ride out to visit a friend of mine who wishes to give me something-you will go and fetch it from her for me." said Queen Helen, pleased with herself. No one could say there was anything wrong in her requesting such a simple favor from her husband's daughter.

"Mightn't I go after breakfast?" Susan was a little tired, she had not slept all that well the night before, and she wasn't in the mood for riding on an empty stomach.

"Of course not!" Queen Helen gasped as though she had said something horridly cruel. "It's important that you go right away."

"All right," Susan said, resigned now. "but to who's castle am I traveling?"

"To the palace of the ice countess, in Charn."

Lucy dropped her silverware on the floor where it fell into the springy scarlet carpet with a slight _clink_. "Mum! You can't send Su out to meet the ice countess, she's a witch, everyone says so!"

"That's nonsense for babies, Lucy," her mother lied sternly. "There aren't any such things as witches, she's just an eccentric, ask anyone you like."

Lucy protested rather passionately about this, but Susan, convinced that Helen was probably quite right about there not being any real witches living in Charn, too practical minded to believe in that sort of thing, was resolved to go and to get back as quickly as possible.

As her sister walked passed her chair to leave the room, Lucy, tears in her eyes, slipped Susan the bread roll in her hands so that she would at least have _something_ in her stomach before she went out riding, however small it was.


	3. Ugly Reflections

When they saw Princess Susan coming, a dark woolen traveling cape over her royal dress and her leather riding crop that had her initials sewn into it with gold thread in her left hand, the grooms and stable-hands stopped trying to calm the panting, sweating, queen's horse they had discovered in a fitful, frightened state when they'd woken, and bowed to her.

"Good morning, your Highness," The head groom already had her usual ebony-black leather side-saddle with the crimson embroidery in his hands, ready to assist her.

Swallowing the last of the bread roll Lucy had given her (she'd been eating it on her way down), Susan informed them that she was going to be running an errand.

"Which horse will you take?"

Unlike most of the castle folk, Susan had two horses. This was because, although she already had her trusted white gelding, Isbjorn, the marquis of Archenland had sent her a palomino mare, saying it was a gift for the eldest princess from his son, perhaps hoping that Susan would be touched and would convince her father to change his mind over the marriage refusal all those years ago. He also sent a fine hound puppy to the younger princess, just in case. Lucy had liked the puppy, although he barked such an awful lot at night and her mother would have sent him to 'visit' a nice farm family if she could have done so without making it a royal insult to the Archenland Court.

"Isbjorn," Susan had no intention of taking the Marquis's horse, she wasn't used to the gait of that horse yet, whereas Isbjorn had been living in their stables since he was a new-born colt.

"Certainly, your Highness." he said, opening the horse's padlock and taking him out to be brushed.

The gelding started snorting excitedly as soon as he noticed Susan, thinking she might have a lump of sugar or a carrot on her.

"Sorry, sweetie," Susan whispered to the horse as the grooms helped her up into the saddle. "I don't have anything for you this morning."

Isbjorn, seeming to understand, let out a sad-sounding whinny, and then proceeded to quickly get over it, pleased to be going out for some exercise.

The closer Isbjorn and Susan got to the freezing meadow of Charn, the more thickly snow seemed to fall. There was supposedly always snow over this meadow, but it seemed worse than usual that morning, so Susan went a little ways around it, rather than through it as her stepmother had. Much to her unease, she saw a small portion of the side-field, covered in sheets of icy white as only to be expected, dotted with dozens of stone statues. Most of them were little animals: arctic rabbits, grey squirrels, mice, chipmunks, little foxes, a squat-looking frog or two. But there were others that were larger: a powerful-looking bear, a stern-faced giant holding a club inscribed with the name, _Rumblebuffin_ , a graciously-sized unicorn, and a Great Dane.

There was something eerie about those statues, like they weren't carved from hands at all-human or otherwise-and Susan couldn't endure looking at them for too long, urging Isbjorn to go faster. The sooner they got to the palace of the ice countess, the sooner they could leave and go home. All the same, she couldn't help thinking, if only for a moment, how saddening it was to imagine these poor little statues being whipped about by winter-winds until their features faded and weeds and moss grew all over them, and their faces fell away.

The palace looked rather grim with its bluish glow and tall, pointy towers that seemed to serve more for decoration than for rooms or look-outs. She still didn't believe in witches, yet she thought only a mythical witch wouldn't mind living in such a sinister place. Or else, maybe that was just part of her so-called eccentric ways.

"This certainly isn't a palace I should like to attend a late-night ball at," Susan murmured under her breath as she slipped down from her saddle and tied her horse to a weak, dying tree, telling him not to go off. She must have had faith in Isbjorn, because she obviously knew that the gelding was strong enough break the flimsy branches and tear himself free if he got the notion.

Maugrim and the other wolves greeted her at the door. The other wolves looked at her with almost hungry expressions, their eyes bright and their teeth dripping, but Maugrim wouldn't let them too near her, knowing his duty.

Susan had recoiled, stepping back in horror. It was one thing to keep dogs, many nobles she knew did, but to keep wild wolves seemed to be crossing a line. Unless they were tamer than they appeared. There was nothing tame about the pack leader, but the others looked stupid enough to be domesticated if they thought it would benefit them.

"Good day, Princess," said Maugrim, his nose moist and his eyes dark. "We were expecting you."

"I've come to see the countess."

"And so you shall," the wolf told her. "Right this way."

She followed him around the palace to a small frozen door almost on the ground like a cellar entrance, so packed and crusted over with snow, that she couldn't help wondering if there _was_ any real metal under it, if it wasn't actually solid snow through and through.

"Open the door," he ordered her.

There was no proper handle and she couldn't grip it with her gloves, so she took them off and pulled the door open, getting red hands and one split knuckle for her pains.

Under the door, Susan could see nothing but gaping black unless she squinted and forced herself to make out the pale outlines of a thin, icy stairwell. The wolf was out of his mind if he thought she was going down there without a light. She could break her neck!

But then the wolf took the first step down and she saw something like a glowing light around his neck; a crude lightened collar showing the way. It wasn't good light, not warm and full of illumination like sunlight or like the oil lamps in the Ettinsmoor Castle library or even like the candlelight at state dinners and balls, rather, it was like murky moonlight when it is half-blocked by a blackish cloud. It was enough to see by if she clung to the side walls as she went down and prayed her fingers did not freeze to them permanently, but it wasn't exactly comforting, either.

When she finally reached the bottom, she found herself in a funny little room lit by something that looked like a dark-blue parody of a fire with pale green sparks shooting out from it. It wasn't warm, which seemed to defeat the purpose of a fireplace. A small black cauldron hung over it with a large ice lid on its top. If it had been a real fire, Susan would have marveled over the fact that the lid did not melt and would have thought she was dreaming.

The White Witch stepped out of the pale purple shadows cast by the opposite wall, apparently having been there all along. She wore a striking white gown covered in crystals cut in various snowflake shapes and a cloak of royal-blue over her otherwise bare arms.

Susan wasn't sure if she was supposed to bow. The woman seemed to be waiting, but princesses didn't usually bow down to countesses, did they? "Hullo,"

She took a step forward, holding something in one hand that Susan had mistaken for a walking-stick or cane at first, only to see it was more like a wand.

"Go over to the pot and lift the lid, Princess." The White Witch told her, eyeing the hearth.

Whatever she was supposed to fetch for queen Helen might be in that pot, so she crept over to it and lifted the lid, surprised to find it did not hurt her fingers like lifting the door open had.

Looking down, Susan couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed and confused. There was nothing in there but what looked like still, clear water and a well-varnished cauldron bottom. The only thing worth looking at in there seemed to be her own reflection, the familiar pretty face flushed from the trip over and numb with cold. Nothing different than what she might commonly see passing the hall-mirror on her way to her bedchamber after playing in the snow with Lucy on a cold winter day.

The White Witch, sensing that something had gone wrong, that the useless Ettinsmoor queen apparently had a hard time following the simplest of directions, said, "Princess, return home and tell Queen Helen I cannot give her what she wants until she has gotten a better lock on her larder door."

Needless to say, Susan hadn't the faintest idea what the ice countess meant by that, but she went back home to the castle of Ettinsmoor to deliver the message. The grooms took Isbjorn in hand at the stable, she pat his nose goodbye and promised to bring a carrot later, and then went up to the dinning hall just as Lucy and Helen were sitting down for the noon meal.

"Susan!" cried Lucy, jumping up from her chair and throwing her arms around her sister. "You came back! You're all right!"

"Of course I am, you goose," Susan teased, not unkindly, stroking her little sister's hair in a tender manner. "You didn't really think there was a witch out to get me, did you?"

From Lucy's wide-eyed expression, she gathered that that was exactly what the poor little thing had thought, reassured her with a kiss on the forehead, and went over to Helen who had not seen her face yet, her chair facing the other way.

The queen turned in her chair, expecting to see her stepdaughter looking hideous, wondering why Lucy hadn't commented on it, and was appalled to see this was not the case. With the melting snow in her dark hair, the eldest princess looked even prettier than usual. Why, even her confused brow crinkled appealingly!

"She said that she could not give you what you wanted until you got a better lock on the larder door," Susan informed her. "She seemed to think you would know what that meant."

"Never you mind," Helen replied distantly. "I will resolve the problem and send you again tomorrow morning."

Lucy looked like she might burst into tears, and she pleaded with her mother not to make Susan travel back to the palace in Charn again, still believing that the lady who lived there with her wolves and icy-gaze was a witch.

Helen refused to be moved; and Susan was indifferent, figuring it wasn't the end of the world, only a somewhat bothersome errand that she would have to repeat. Thinking that if she could avoid seeing those awful statues again and could ignore the leering wolves, it mightn't be quite so bad as Lucy thought it would be, Susan promised to return.

Again she went on Isbjorn and traveled to Charn on an empty stomach. Before she reached the colder region, however, she had to stop to avoid trampling a little red-bearded dwarf who had accidentally dropped a basket of fruit on the road-side and was trying in earnest to gather them up again quickly.

"Halt, Isbjorn!" said Susan, making her horse stop mid-step and getting down from the saddle to see if the dwarf needed any help.

"Hello, Princess," the dwarf-who happened to be related to Narnian courtiers who had visited the Ettinsmoor court before and knew exactly who she was-said politely with a discreet little bow.

"Here, let me help you with that." Susan bent down and gathered up a few dozen apples and oranges and a stray plum.

Thankful that she had not trampled over him-or his fruit-with her white horse, and also not being sure how the plum had gotten into his apples and oranges in the first place, he let her keep the plum and bid her good day and long life.

After waving goodbye to her new acquaintance, Susan brought the plum to her lips and sunk her teeth into it. The fruit was heaven; she had not had any breakfast and was positively famished. It was sweet and juicy, not at all mealy. She sucked it dry and threw away the core before pressing onwards.

Feeling a little better, she tried to decide what she was going to wear at supper that evening when the duke of Winding Arrow was supposed to come visit. It depended on whether or not the duke and his family cared for dancing, she decided, because not all of her dresses matched her dancing shoes. Red-and-green satin with gathered sleeves and the silver slippers, if they liked dancing. Pale hazel brocade with the silver-thread taffeta, ermine-fur-lined shoulder-cape and gold shoes, if they did not.

Or perhaps she would don her gold-thread gown with the glittering copper-coloured sash and simply wear the dark blue fur-lined slippers. That way, she could wear the matching muff which several courtiers had told her brought out her already perfect eyes. But was it appropriate to wear a muff indoors? And at a meal, no less. Hmm, perhaps not. It was the sort of thing a six year old, too excited to wait to wear her winter clothes out walking, would do. No, the hazel-coloured dress would be better suited. But supposing they _did_ like dancing?

Her thoughts slowed down and stopped when she reached the ice countess's palace again. Just as before, the wolves came out and she had to go through the snowy-door, down those same stairs with only Maugrim to guide her, and there was the same cauldron as last time with its ice-lid over the faux-fire.

The White Witch appeared again and told her to lift the lid, but when she obeyed, she found only her own reflection staring back at her once more, nothing else stirring in the water.

Gritting her teeth, tired of being bothered because the queen was too stupid to make sure her daughter didn't eat before she came, Jadis huffed in a cold, bitter voice, "Princess, you may tell her Majesty that the pot will not boil in Charn if the fire burns only in Ettinsmoor."

So, nothing else for it, Susan returned home and passed on the message. Furious, Helen mulled over those words, wondering how Princess Susan could have possibly gotten something to eat twice in a row when she had sent her away without breakfast. _The pot will not boil in Charn if the fire burns only in Ettinsmoor_ : Jadis was right; if Queen Helen wanted to be sure things went according to plan, she would have to come along. The flame of her envy would not scorch her daughter's rival from miles away.

Instead of taking breakfast the next morning, Queen Helen had some toast and cooked apples brought up to her room with a glass of milk. Then, she caught Susan's arm in the corridor on her way to the dinning hall and announced that they would both be going to Charn that morning.

It was the last thing she wanted to do, of course, but Susan could tell the queen was serious about it and would not take no for an answer. "I will just tell Lucy where we are going, and bid her good morning, then we'll go."

"Nonsense," said Helen. "We'll see Lucy when we get back, we haven't time for this now."

Susan attempted to protest, sensing something amiss, but her stepmother pulled her down the staircase, digging her fingernails into the delicate, lacy sleeves of one of her favorite dresses.

If I pull much harder, Susan thought to herself, I'll rip it and the seamstresses will take at least a week or two to fix a tear in such filmy fabric and I shan't be able to wear it to supper with the Tisroc of Calormen, and he's bringing his eldest son, Prince Rabadash, who's supposed to be very handsome.

She didn't believe Queen Helen would bring her to any real harm in spite of her uneasy feeling, and, ignoring her throbbing, practical better judgment, she allowed herself to be taken to the stables.

For some reason Susan could not comprehend, the queen's horse was skittish and bucked and whinnied so much that Helen, at her wits end, ordered the grooms to saddle up her stepdaughter's palomino for herself since the princess would be riding Isbjorn anyway.

This time, there was no roll before leaving and no kind-hearted dwarf with an extra plum, so they arrived at the palace with Susan's stomach thoroughly empty and growling. Her eyes were tired and blood-shot, in spite of her ever-steadfast prettiness.

"Lift the pot," this time, it was Helen who gave the order.

Why not? Thought Susan with an air of superiority, it'll only be water and the ice countess will say some gibberish and then we can go home. I do wish they'd stop with this foolishness; I need time to make myself presentable for our forthcoming guests, not to mention my tutors wont be pleased that I've missed so many morning lessons over a pot of water.

"Ouch!" Susan swore under her breath, surprised that-this time-the pot's lid did hurt to pull up.

Putting the lid aside, she looked down and saw her reflection. Beautiful, as always-but what was that funny cloudiness coming into the water now? It passed over her reflection, changing it drastically. It was a twisted, horrid face that gaped back at her in mystified horror. The ugliest thing she had ever seen, gruesome-monstrous, even. And, yet, she could still see some bizarre likeness to herself gazing back at her in that ugly, ugly face. Shuddering, she turned away and hastily closed the pot, all but slamming the lid back in place, not thinking about the pain in her chilly hands as she did so. There had been nothing to be found except for water and ugliness, and now it was over. Or so she thought.

Although she did not remember it being there before, a large, crudely-designed, silver-framed mirror was on the wall behind her. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in it...and fainted.

Coming back into consciousness, Susan found herself draped across her horse's back, heading away from Charn and back home. There was a heavy black cloak over her body with an enormous hood that went over her face as long as she laid perfectly still. Somehow without being told or actually seeing it for herself, she was aware of Helen on the palomino in front of her, guiding Isbjorn by a rope fastened from one saddle to the other because she-as his rider-had been unable to.

Moving slowly so that Helen wouldn't know she was awake, Susan reached into the leather saddle-bag she happened to have strapped to Isbjorn's side. There weren't many useful objects in there, but she suddenly remembered tucking an old hand-mirror in there along with a hair-brush almost two years ago when the royal family had gone on a ride to pay a visit to the Ettinsmoor army camp. While they'd ridden out like it was a raid, it had been nothing of the sort. It was a time of peace. That was where Susan, now a fine archer, had first learned to hold a bow and arrow.

Wrapping her fingers around the handle of the mirror, slowly bringing it to her face and lifting her hood just the slightest bit upwards, Susan willed herself not to faint again. There it was. She was the ugliest thing ever seen by mortal eyes. Hideous beyond any chance of improvement. Once the comeliest princess in the northern lands, now a face that made ogres seem lovely in comparison. She wasn't sure how it had happened; only that it involved the countess, who really might have been a witch after all, and Queen Helen, the woman who had claimed to love her like a mother but was so ready-even eager-to betray her.

She couldn't look in the mirror anymore. Struggling still not to make too much movement, she attempted to put the mirror back into the saddle bag and failed. To heck with it, she thought bitterly, letting it drop and shatter into hundreds of little pieces, much like the hobgoblin in some old story about a queen who, just like Jadis, lived in a palace of ice. Goodness knew it was more like that fairy-tale than it could have ever been, seeing as she was at least as ugly as any hobgoblin she could imagine. Maybe he had been good-looking once, too, maybe that was why he was so devilish and wicked. Susan had never thought she'd feel pity for a nursery-tale villain.

Helen heard the mirror fall and whipped her head around. While she was glad the deed was done, there had never been a more relieving moment for her than when the princess had fainted. The idea of looking into Susan's ugly face while she asked, "How could you?" was a bit much to bear from someone she had helped raise to some extent. Honestly, in spite of her sense of getting done what she had to get done, there was a trickle of remorse running through her veins. Noticing the broken mirror behind them and Susan still lying flat, she figured it had simply fallen out of the saddle-bag on its own.

All she had to do was get Susan back to the castle and it would all be over. The princess would be too proud to tell anyone important what had happened; she would never show herself before her father or her courtiers in that state, it would be too humiliating for her. Thus, without proof, nothing could be done. Helen was in the clear.

At least, the queen thought, trying to justify her actions, I've finally secured a good place for my own daughter, so that she wont be over-shadowed for ever.

Once they reached the royal stable, Susan sat up, leapt out of the saddle, pulled the cloak as far over her face as it would go, and held her arms in front of her face just in case any dwarfs from Narnia were present-some of them were friends with the grooms-and should peek up at her.

Then she made a dash for her bedchamber, shut and locked the door, pushed a chair in front of it, and threw herself under her bed-sheets. Tears flowed, but at least she was comforted with the fact that no one would see the large drops raining down on her ugly face.


	4. Going to Narnia

"Susan," a voice boomed outside her door, a fist pounding on the wood next to the knob. "Open this door at once!"

Susan pulled her head out from under the covers and caught a glimpse of her hideous reflection. She had seen sheep with prettier heads! It may have been her father, the king, at the door, as she was well aware of, but there was no way she was opening it. Groaning, she yanked on the sheet she had covered her head with, crying under for the last couple of hours or so, and tossed it over her mirror. Looking at herself only made it worse. Her sensible mind tried to convince her that perhaps it wasn't quite so bad as she thought, that she was making a row over something that might-just might-be improved on, but then she would see her face and despair. No, it was ugly. Too ugly.

"The Tisroc is here," the king's voice was testy. Back when she was a little girl, such a tone would have frightened her. But nothing was more frightening than her own reflection, and if she had endured that, a little shouting was nothing.

The Tisroc would think she was a monster if he saw her. His son would not be pleased, either. They'd probably think her parents had dabbled in witchcraft or something else of unspeakable horror in order to gain such a deformed daughter; such creatures didn't appear in the natural world.

Her mother's portrait was still in the passageway of the north wing; Susan could picture it in her mind just by closing her eyes. To think of her poor, pretty mother was painful. People would call her the spawn of goblins the way she looked now-a dreadful insult to the sweet, kindly woman who'd given birth to her.

Wiping her puffy eyes, Susan wandered over to the draw where she kept her jewelry. She didn't care a fig for most of it in light of what had happened to her, the majority of them having been gifts from would-be suitors and local courtiers impressed by her beauty, but there was one piece she wanted more than ever. It was a thin silver chain on which hung the white-gold pendant of a Christmas Rose. This simple necklace had belonged to her mother; she was even wearing it in her portrait if you looked close enough, though the painter had embellished it to make it look a bit larger and grander, more expensive.

Bringing the pendant to her unsightly lips, Susan kissed it and fastened the little chain around her neck with shaky fingers, biting back another round of salty tears.

There was another knock at her door, not the king this time. It was too soft and apologetic for that. Timid mousy voices chirped through the wood. Ah, the maidservants and the ladies-in-waiting. Susan thought she never wanted to see her ladies again. They had been her friends when she was beautiful, they'd hate her now. They would have waited well enough on a plain princess, or even a dull, dumpy princess, but a wretched, down-right ugly one? Never! They'd mock her and she'd hate them for it. She didn't want to hate them, though, she only wanted them to go away.

"Leave me be!" she screamed at the door, not even taking so much as a half-step forward, collapsing on the bed again. "Go away!"

"But your Highness, we're to help you dress for supper with the Tisroc and the prince!"

Bitterness arose in Susan's heart. "Oh, bother that! I think I remember how to dress myself. And besides, I wont go! You can very well tell them I wont be coming down!"

"But why not, Princess?" the voice was meek. No, it was frightened. The king would be cross, anxious over relations with Calormen.

Feeling embarrassed over her out-burst, knowing how unlike her that was, she amended, "Forgive me, I'm unwell."

"You've taken ill, your Highness?"

"Yes," replied Susan. "Tell the Tisroc and the king I'm too sick to come down for supper."

"Shall we bring you something to eat?"

Goodness no! They would _see_ her if they did that! She swallowed a sob. "No, thank you most kindly, I only need some rest."

"Surely someone should attend to you, you want the physician to be sent for?"

Mercy, that wasn't what she wanted! She wanted them to go away. "Please don't send for anyone, just tell my father I'm not coming."

"As you wish, your Highness."

There was the sound of a dozen or so pairs of ladies' feet marching off down towards the other wings of the castle. Susan nearly swooned with relief. There was no way she could keep this up, her good sense told her that, but what else could she do?

_Knock, Knock._

Bother this! How could she think of a plan when everyone kept knocking every bloody five seconds? This was madness!

"What?" she barked, assuming the ladies-in-waiting had returned.

"Susan?"

Her heart stopped for a moment, pained. She had thought she didn't want to see _anyone_ ever again, but of course there _would_ be an exception to that rule. Lucy. Darling Lucy. If anyone could ever see through her ugliness and still like her, it was that angel of a child. She'd find something lovable in a rabid rat if the right circumstances presented themselves.

"Lucy, are you alone?" Susan got up and came to the door.

"Yes, of course." Lucy answered, seeming surprised by the question.

She moved the chair opened the door a crack. "Get in here quickly and shut the door behind you."

Lucy's brow crinkled; she couldn't see Susan's face, she was holding both of her arms in front of it and moving over towards the other side of the room at the same time. She closed the door behind herself.

"Susan, aren't you all right? You told the maids you were-" Her lips parted and she swallowed hard. Her sister Susan had turned and looked right at her now, dull, lackluster blue eyes shinning so pitifully.

"Don't be afraid," Susan whispered, lightly reaching out her hand as if she were afraid to touch her own sister's wrist. "It's still me, I swear."

"Oh, Su!" cried Lucy, throwing her arms around her sister. She didn't ask what had happened, not even sure she wanted to know, it seemed so ghastly. She only wanted to comfort her sister, for something dreadful had happened to her. She looked so different!

The face she had stared into was certainly Susan's. She would have recognized it anywhere. Yet, it wasn't the Susan she knew. It was a different Susan, one devoid of all beauty, with a nasty complexion, and somewhat twisted features.

As briefly and to the point as possible, Susan explained about Jadis and Helen, and how she had-after those rather traumatic events-run back up to her chamber and hidden herself.

At first, Lucy was quite indignant with her mother until Susan, masking part of her own anger, seeing it as so small and harmless compared to the fierce little lioness face of her younger sister peering up into her blank, unattractive one, actually said, "Don't be cross with her, Lu, its of no use to you. Leave the anger to me; I shall have just enough, I think, for the both of us."

"But you'll have to tell father, Su," (Lucy called the king father, too). "Wont you?"

"Tell him what?" Susan moaned. "That Queen Helen and the ice countess made a hideous fool out of me?"

Lucy shrugged her shoulders. What else could her sister say?

"Don't be like that! See reason! Surely you realize I can't let them look at me like...like _this_..." Passionately, she buried her face in her arms and pulled her knees to her chest.

Thinking to comfort her, Lucy put a hand on her back and rubbed it until she felt better.

"There's nothing else for it," said Susan. "I've got to go away. I'll never live in any royal court again, or marry, or have lovers, or go to balls. Oh, Lucy-I'm ruined! I only know one sort of life and I can no longer live it. How can someone go away when there's no where for them to go away to? No one will love me ever again, you know."

Pouting and reaching out of some old habit for the place in her skirt where she often secured a handkerchief, Lucy said, "Well, _I_ love you, and you needn't go on about it so. If you've got to leave court, we'll go together."

In spite of herself, Susan smiled, removed her face from her arms, and grasped her sister's hands like a drowning woman. "Oh, Lucy, you'll come with me?"

"Yes, of course." Lucy was firm, thoroughly resolute. "We'll go out into the world and seek our fortunes, just like the heroines in the story-books the Royal Nurses would read to us before bed when you were younger."

Susan half-scoffed at the comparison, thinking that if life were really like a story-book, she wouldn't have been cursed with a face that would make babies cry and puppies whimper, not remembering as Lucy did, that most fairy-tales involve quite a large dose of unhappiness and dark-themes.

"I can't leave the castle looking like this," Susan reminded her. "We shall have to wait until is very dark and then-" She paused for a moment. "-Wait, what are you doing?"

Rather than listening to her sister's plan, Lucy was rummaging around the closet for something, not paying much attention until her fingers latched around what she was searching for. "Ah, here it is."

Her curiosity peeked, Susan said, "What have you got there, Lu?"

"An old headdress of yours," Lucy explained, lifting the long-forgotten accessory up to show her.

It was a golden-russet circlet with a long draping silken cloth which flopped in the front like a veil. The inside cloth was lighter than its thickly embroidered brocade outer counterpart, resulting in a tinted effect. While wearing it, a person could see out all right, though they might occasionally have to squint in certain lightings if the shadows of the outer patterns should obscure their view, but it was impossible for someone to see into it.

While it was pretty enough, Susan had never worn it, preferring headdresses that delicately _shaped_ her face instead of covering it. Lucy had probably played dress-up with it more than Susan had ever even _touched_ it.

"You can wear it so we don't have to ride in pitch blackness."

"You're brilliant," Susan told her gratefully as she slipped the veil into place.

Lucy smiled modestly and waved her hand as if to say, "Oh, it was nothing-just a passing idea."

Taking a deep breath, Susan reached up and pulled the sheet off of the mirror so she could look at herself. The veil was an improvement, certainly. Unlike that dreadful face she'd seen earlier, the veil gave hope. The veil didn't make her look like a freak. Thinking vainly for a fleeting moment, she reached under the veil and pushed a lock of her dark hair over one shoulder so that the tips stuck out. After all, her hair hadn't changed, and people had always said it was pretty, too.

While Susan packed her dresses (unlike her jewelry, pretty much all of them were of her taste and choosing and did not remind her of any lost suitors, and so she wanted to take a few of them with her) Lucy poured over a map by the oil lamp in the corner of the room, trying to decide where they might go.

In theory, Susan was better at planning places and routes, but Lucy didn't want to end up in some dull, boring, run-of-the-mill, milk-and-butter town that her elder sister picked out thinking purely of the practicalities of their situation. If they were going to run away, they might as well find a real adventure. By which she did not mean shelling peas for some inn keeper in a village on the Telmarine border. The very thought made her shudder.

Another place she certainly didn't want to end up was Calormen. She'd spoken briefly with the Tisroc and his pompous eldest son, and from what they said about the their country (they were bragging, by the way), she knew it wasn't a homey sort of place. She was interested in seeing the Archenland Court, The castle of Anvard sounded rather nice, she thought, but it was a bit too far south to pin their hopes to. It was best to aim for something closer; Susan might be more likely to agree to let Lucy navigate if her expectations seemed reasonable.

Lucy's eyes flickered to _Narnia_. She had always loved all things Narnian. She adored the dwarfs who came to visit the Courtiers; she pestered a sour-faced nursemaid, who'd had a cousin who was supposedly half-Narnian, for stories of that country so often she finally quit and went to seek employment elsewhere; she even wore Narnian dresses as often as it was allowed. She had only actually been to Narnia once, for dinner over a lordship's manor, but she had loved her trip so dearly that she'd replayed every moment of it in her mind hundreds of times.

Oh Narnia, Narnia. Susan had actually met the crown prince of Narnia when she was about three or four. A small golden-haired little toddler, he poked her on the cheek once with his index finger at supper in the dinning hall, evidently out of some bizarre curiosity, and she had causally kicked him in the shins under the table in return. He never tried to touch her again. That story (Which Susan conveniently claimed she 'didn't remember') always made Lucy chuckle. There was something about the crown prince of Narnia that she liked even though she had never met him personally. He seemed friendly-brotherly, even-and she liked friendly people.

With some reluctance, and a half-hearted attempt to change her little sister's mind, Susan consented to go to Narnia. She hadn't the faintest idea what she would do when she got there, but at least she wouldn't be there alone. She had Lucy: her sister, her traveling companion.

They crept down to the stables when the grooms were on their break and saddled Isbjorn. Lucy was sorry to leave behind her own mare, Rosie, but she knew that horse had a particularly bad case of homesickness. If the creature started to get nervous and dejected after only a three-hour venture, and became borderline depressed when they went on a trip that left her in a stable other than the one at the Ettinsmoor Castle for more than a week, she wasn't going to be happy in Narnia. Isbjorn was different, more adventurous, and more desperate to be with his owner. If Susan went away and didn't come back, he might die of a broken heart. If Lucy left, Rosie would miss her a little bit but would not be shattered over her absence.

So she strapped the packs to Isbjorn, took the reins in her hands, and helped her elder sister up behind her.

Susan grumbled something about the fact that she should be allowed to direct her own horse and that Lucy should be the one sitting in the back. Lucy quietly pointed out that with the rustling fabric in front of her face, Susan probably wasn't in the best of conditions to direct the venture.

Knowing that taking off the veil wasn't an option, she sighed and gave in, still grumbling somewhat until fear over her own near future griped her again and shut her up for a little while.

Someone entered the stable just as they were leaving it. Peering over her shoulder and through the veil, Susan saw it was Prince Rabadash and the head groom. He was handsome; just like she'd heard. More so, actually. She had something of a soft spot towards the tall, darkish handsome sorts. There was something nice about fair-haired, rosy complexioned noblemen, too; she certainly didn't discriminate against them, but she had always found herself naturally drawn to darker men. Sighing, she imagined what it would have been like to be her old self again, flirting with the crown prince of Calormen at supper.

"Lucy," she whispered shortly to her sister. "He's very good-looking, don't you think?"

Straining at bit, Lucy leaned over on Isbjorn's back and squinted at him (this was more for Susan's benefit, because Lucy had already seen him before with the Tisroc but did not want to upset her sister by not even glancing at him before replying).

Eh, she thought to herself-trying not to laugh, he probably _would_ be handsome if he ever rid himself of that 'do I smell doo-doo?' expression he seems to constantly wear on his face.

Much as she tried, Lucy simply couldn't think of anything nice enough about Rabadash to say out-loud, so she simply shrugged her shoulders and muttered, "I guess so; but we really should be going before he notices us."

Susan half-hoped he would, not thinking about how he might react if he saw her without the veil. How much he might hate her. Truly, though, she needn't have worried about him taking any notice of her or her sister at all. He was far too busy stamping his foot and yelling insults at the head-groom in a whinny drawl that made her head ache, even from the other side of the stable.

Her momentary fancy for the prince was over; Susan felt her nose wrinkle up. Suddenly he didn't seem quite so handsome as she had thought at first. She didn't much like the idea of hearing that loud-mouthed prince whine day in and day out, and felt deep pity for his menservants-they had to be around him all day, poor things!

"Ugh," Susan grimaced, disgusted. "Let's just go."

"Gladly," murmured Lucy, making a faint clicking noise with her tongue to get Isbjorn moving again.

Because they knew there was always the chance that someone might be sent after them to try and bring them back, the girls were clever enough to use mostly old dirt roads and back ways, and to stay out of sight of the general traffic as much as possible. Susan knew she couldn't endure being taken back to the castle and being seen in her current state and Lucy didn't want to give up their new freedom until they'd seen Narnia, nearly intoxicated with the novelty of it all, so they were careful.

Things seemed to be going well until Isbjorn let out a distressed whinny as something made of shinny metal plopped in the dirt behind them. The gelding refused to keep moving and shifted uncomfortably until both princesses decided it would be safer to get off of his back and investigate than to try to force him to press on.

"Oh, here it is!" exclaimed Lucy as she held up a small object made of glittering gold.

Susan squinted; the sun was hitting her veil the wrong way and her view of whatever her sister was holding wasn't very good at the moment. It looked like a sort of boomerang, only she couldn't imagine why there would be a gold boomerang in the middle of the road or why that would have made the horse stop so suddenly. She lifted her arm to block the sunlight and change the shadows in her view. It was a horseshoe. Isbjorn had thrown a shoe.

"Hallo there!" The two Princesses of Ettinsmoor were startled by a voice calling them. "I say! Are you all right?"

There was a blue-and-purple coach driven by a brown-faced dwarf, squat in his seat. The speaker was a fair-headed boy a little younger than Lucy with a thin, wire-like band of gold around his pale forehead and short yellow hair. He was sticking his head out of the coach's window, through the sky-blue curtains, peering over at them curiously with his hand over his eyes.

Although Susan was anxious at being spotted by anyone, she didn't see the lad as too much of a threat. He was a puny thing-Lucy could have taken him in a fight if she had to-and the dwarf-driver didn't appear all that strong either, however well he managed the horses he directed.

"Our horse has thrown a shoe," Lucy called up to him.

"I see," said the boy. "I am Eustace Clarence: Duke of Dragon Island, squire in the court of Narnia, who are you?"

Glancing over at Susan and then back at Eustace, Lucy decided to risk everything. "If you please, Duke Clarence, my sister and I are Princesses from Ettinsmoor-we were trying to get to Narnia when..." She rolled her eyes back towards the white gelding who was looking quite innocent and oblivious of the whole scene.

"What luck! It just so happens that I'm on my way to Cair Paravel, the Narnian court, you might as well join us in the carriage. I can have my valet take your horse along behind us."

Now that she thought about it, Lucy realized that Duke Clarence spoke in a very proper tone which his boyish voice was really not suited for. The Duke took himself seriously. She decided to find it charming rather than irritating because he clearly didn't mean any harm by it. And he was being jolly kind to them after all.

The valet was a froggy sort of person with a stern face and a fuzzy cowlick under his well-worn straw hat. Lucy knew him for a marshwiggle after a few moments of trying to think of what those creatures were called.

"Puddleglum," said Eustace, nodding his head in the princesses' direction. "Please take their Highness's horse down to the first blacksmith you can find and then meet us back at Cair Paravel."

"I'll do it," agreed Puddleglum, a somber frown on his brow and lips. "What's a fellow got in life but to do their duty, that's what I'd say. Not that it wont be likely for something to happen on the way. The horse could spook and rear and I could lose him for ever. Or, I dare say, he could throw another shoe. Worse, we might not make it to a blacksmith 'fore darkness falls. But we must hope for the best-we've got to put a brave face on it."

"Don't mind him," Eustace whispered to Susan and Lucy as he helped them up into the coach. "he always talks like that. Deep down he's really very brave, I think."

Making sure her veil was still in place, that her headdress wasn't dropping, Susan sat down next to Lucy, across from Eustace and a girl around his age sitting quietly at his side.

"I'm Lady Pole, Jill," the girl spoke up when she realized Duke Clarence had quite forgotten to introduce her, currently busying himself with waving good-bye to Puddleglum. "Of Archenland." (She was, in fact, actually the sister of the marquis's son Susan or Lucy might have married).

"Pleased to meet you," Lucy told her, reaching out to shake Lady Jill's hand. "I'm Princess Lucy, and she's Princess Susan."

"I know," she said cheerfully. "I've met her father before, when he came to the Archenland court on a short visit some years ago."

"And how did you find him?" Susan asked conversationally, in spite of herself.

"He seemed nice enough, for a king, I suppose." said Jill, shrugging her shoulders in a disinterested manner. "He mostly spoke with my father and he took my brother aside and talked with him for a while. Jack said it was all small-talk, like about the weather and the ducks in the royal moat, probably just checking to make sure he wasn't a half-wit."

"I see," Susan said quietly, not sure why the mention of her father in the Archenland court made her feel sort of sad. Maybe she just missed him, knowing that as long as she was ugly and he was still ruling as king in a court she could never return to, they might never see each other again.

"If you don't mind my asking," Jill's cheeks reddened as if she was about to ask a question she felt she hadn't any real right to ask. "Why do you cover your face like that, Princess Susan?"

Lucy was wearing a headdress as well, but it was of a completely different style, a darker colour, and it covered her fair, wispy hair and the crown of her head, not her face. Susan's was more outlandish and mystifying.

Due to the long silence that followed, Jill's hand went to her mouth apologetically. "I'm sorry, really, I did not mean to pry."

"It's fine," Susan whispered, looking down through the veil at the slightly ruffled fabric of the skirt of her dress bunching up in her lap. "I cover my face because I must. I am unwell, I am sick."

"I'm sorry," Jill said again.

Lucy looked out the window at the passing roads...thought about her sister...her mother...her stepfather...Ettinsmoor...Archenland...Narnia...and sighed heavily.


	5. Courtly Illness

Peter, the crown prince of Narnia, came out into the courtyard of Cair Paravel just as the carriage pulled in.

The door opened and his cousin, the duke of Dragon Island, stepped out.

"Eustace, my dear old chap," Peter greeted him warmly. "How are you?"

"I'm well," said Eustace.

"Good," he nodded politely. "I'm glad to see you again, cousin, even under such..." His lips curled into a saddened grimace of pain. "...distressing circumstances."

Patting the crown prince lightly on the side of his right arm, Eustace replied, "Yes, I've been away at school for too long."

"We'll have to elevate you to knighthood if you end up staying here at court," said Peter, sounding very much like he was trying to force positive small-talk against his own inclinations. "I know we wont get a moment's peace if we don't."

Eustace was aware of the tears his cousin held back. "We'll see."

"Mmm," he sounded absent now.

Finally, now that formalities were over with, Duke Clarence of Dragon Island dared to ask, "Has the new physician seen him?"

"Yes," Peter said quietly.

"Can he do anything?"

Swallowing hard, Prince Peter shook his head and forced another faux-smile at the duke, biting onto his lower lip to keep himself from crying.

"How much time does he have?" asked Eustace, when he found his voice again.

"We don't talk about that," Peter closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. "Not yet."

Just behind Lady Pole, Lucy stepped out of the coach, helping Susan out after her. She noticed the crown prince glancing passed Eustace over at her, and bobbled a quick curtsey. Peter arched a brow at her and a friendly giggle escaped her throat in spite of her best efforts. In that moment, both knew they had become friends.

For Susan, however, the situation was not that easy. If anything, it was terrifying. She had left Ettinsmoor to avoid court life and now she found herself in the presence of a crown prince. It would have been a bit more bearable if he were a homely young man with a stuttering problem, that might have made her feel a little less embarrassed in his presence, but he wasn't. He was still golden-haired just like he had been as a small child, with longer cheeks and narrower features. Quite handsome in a light-faced way, she decided.

And she was still ugly. He looked straight at her and she wondered if he could see through the veil somehow.

Of course he couldn't, she knew that, but she was uncomfortable all the same. To be around a young man who would one day be a king in such a state...it was too dreadful for words.

Eustace introduced them as the princesses of Ettinsmoor and explained how their horse had thrown a shoe on the way.

"Pleased to meet you both," said Peter, aware that he had actually already met the elder one once before, but unwilling to fully abandon the formalities engrained into his behavior since he was old enough to stand upright, shaking Lucy's hand with a firm grip.

Susan thought she was going to be sick. He would want to shake _her_ hand next, and then he would say something polite followed by an inquiry regarding her veil...she started trembling.

Lucy felt her sister's hand tighten around her own and sensed Susan's anxiousness to avoid having to greet the crown prince properly. She tried to think of something she could say or do to help, but couldn't come up with anything.

Thankfully, Lady Pole spoke up for her. "Princess Susan is unwell, your Grace, she was mentioning it only a while ago on the way. I suppose a chamber for her could be found so that she might rest and recover her strength?"

A flash of pity flickered in Peter's eyes, assuming she was shaking from illness rather than fear, and he ordered one of the servants to show the veiled princess to a comfortable guest chamber at once and to see to it that she had all she needed.

Relieved, Susan went to follow the servant at once. "Come along, Lu," she whispered, reaching for Lucy's hand to bring her sister with her.

"Wait a moment, Princess Lucy," the crown prince interjected, fast-walking over to her side. "Would you mind terribly if we had a quick chat? I assure you your sister will come to no harm from the servants in my castle."

"Will that be all right?" Lucy whispered to Susan; she wanted very much to speak with Prince Peter, but felt it might be rather crumby of her to leave her frightened sister alone with servants she did not know-even if they were Narnians.

Susan stole another look at the crown prince and felt a shiver run up her spine. "Better you than me." Lucy wasn't cursed with ugliness, _she_ would be fine. "Go on, then."

"Come," Peter nodded at Lucy. "we can walk in the west corridor."

As she followed him, Lucy took in his appearance as if trying to figure him out. There was the look of a leader in him, proud and brave, a good measure of kindness in his manner, but there was something else working under it that made him seem older than his supposedly only eighteen years. Sorrow and pain and fear. Lucy felt at once that she would like very much to cheer him up, to make him laugh-or at least, to make him smile genuinely.

He was tall, a good head higher than Susan, with a rather deep-chested look to him, though he was not actually a very large man, leaning more towards the slender side.

Being a prince of Narnia, his clothes were of course all Narnian-made with the familiar designs Lucy liked best; his leather jerkin was the shade of dark blue known as gnome-blue, over a paler blue billowy shift tucked into short brown trousers with wool tights sticking out from where the hem stopped.

"I wished to speak with you, Princess Lucy of Ettinsmoor, because I wanted to make sure you understood that you are welcome here, with my blessing and my deepest condolences." said Peter, his tone proper and kingly while his expression was more informal and honest.

"How do you mean?" Lucy asked, feeling as if she were having a talk with an old friend she had known for years in spite of the fact that they'd only just met.

"I mean," he said gently, "that I understand what it is to have a sibling who is ill."

"You do?"

The crown prince's jaw-line tightened. "My younger brother is dying."

"I'm sorry," Lucy felt guilty that she didn't even know much about his younger brother. She wouldn't have even known there _was_ a second prince if not for her fascination with the court of Cair Paravel, and as it was she knew only that he was reclusive and-judging by Peter's sad eyes-sickly. Prince Edmund, she was pretty sure his name was. That was a nice name, too-she liked it.

"No one knows what his illness is," Peter explained grimly. "much less whatever is causing it."

Lucy's throat gave a hum of sympathy.

"He's bedridden day in and day out, but he always seems exhausted. Sometimes he gets a cough-and he can barely breathe-which can take months to go away..." Peter's voice became more of a murmur; he didn't like talking about these things. "...the king, our father, is offering a peck of silver to anyone who can figure out what's wrong with him."

"Hasn't anyone tried?" asked Lucy, surprised that she had never heard of the peck of silver reward. She wouldn't have cared much about the silver itself, having been more concerned about the invalid Narnian prince, but such a thing would have caused a scandal back in Ettinsmoor and her sister almost never missed a piece of gossip.

"A few," Peter said dryly, not terribly impressed with those who had. "No one of consequence."

"And nothing?"

He nodded. "Nothing."

"Good day, Prince Peter." A middle-aged nobleman with a clean-shaven face and salt-and-pepper-coloured hair was standing before them. His tunic had the most ridiculously large sleeves at the shoulders that Lucy had ever seen apart from the frilly things the Tisroc of Calormen liked to wear (and she had never seen such a monstrosity made of Narnian cloth); it was uncertain whether he actually liked the absurd garment, or had merely ticked off his tailor.

Behind him, stood a shrew of a noblewoman with a long nose and tiny wrist bones, dressed in a long, sleek gown of grey, silver-thread taffeta.

"Lucy, I would like you to meet my uncle and aunt, Lord and Lady Scrubb." Peter introduced them, his eyes rolling slightly in spite of his best attempts to keep them straight.

"Lord Harold, your...um... _ladyship_?" Lord Scrubb did not know who she was, and was well-aware that his wife wouldn't forgive him if he didn't learn her title before continuing to speak with her.

"She's not a lady, Uncle." said Peter.

Lady Scrubb (also known as Alberta) tugged on her husband's arm, not wanting to be seen taking with a commoner who dared to show her face in court, dressed in royal garments as if she had a right to be.

Lucy watched Peter's mouth twist humorously; he was going to enjoy embarrassing them. "She's the daughter of the king of Ettinsmoor."

"Oh, welcome to Cair Paravel, your Highness" Lady Scrubb's face changed completely and her lips morphed into a ghastly parody of a welcoming smile, reaching out her hands to the princess in greeting.

Gritting his teeth at his aunt, Peter reached out and tucked his arm under Lucy's. "I am afraid I have promised to show Princess Lucy the koi pond," he tilted his head smugly and pulled her down towards the other side of the corridor. "we will have to meet up at another time."

"You'll have to forgive Eustace's parents," he whispered in her ear, "they're a bit uppity, proud as peacocks to live at court. I think nearly everyone here wishes they didn't, though."

Her brow crinkled in confusion. "Those were Eustace's parents?"

His eyes widened in surprise. "You didn't know?"

"Of course not," Lucy told him. "I thought his surname was Clarence."

Peter chuckled. "No, I'm afraid not, it's only his middle name, but if I were him, I wouldn't want to admit to being a Scrubb if I could help it. Now that he's got a dukedom in his own rights, he can get away with it to some degree."

"What's down that way?" Lucy asked, pointing down towards a darkened vestibule with all its thick velvet curtains tightly drawn. She knew he was supposedly taking her to see the koi pond, but she was more curious as to the castle itself than to the fish.

"Ah, that is the wing where my brother sleeps now, they've moved in there so that he can rest better." Peter sighed heavily. "He didn't want to leave his own chambers; Edmund's always liked his bedchamber because it has a view of the sea and he claims it makes him feel better, but when he started getting worse, father was adamant."

Poor thing, Lucy thought, imagine having a view of the beautiful eastern sea in a bright, cheery room and then getting stuck in the only dreary place in the whole castle other than probably the dungeon!

A maidservant in a simple blue-and-white striped dress and a cream-coloured silken cap on her head came rushing out of the corridor. "Your Highness!" She bowed to Peter and started waving franticly with her hands, getting borderline hysterical.

"What's the matter?" Peter asked her, hoping it wasn't what he thought it was.

"It's happened again, Crown Prince." she sobbed loudly, clearly at the end of her endurance. "If it happens again tomorrow, I shall give in notice. I'm sorry but I simply cannot stand to see royalty in such a state, it's horrid on my nerves, I'm going to have another nervous break-down."

Peter shook his head and brushed by her, not unkindly. "By the Lion, not again!"

A manservant in a dark olive-coloured tunic and black leather, copper-buckle shoes came out of a partly ajar doorway holding a large white cloth, concealing something inside of it.

Even though she hadn't been invited, Lucy followed Peter and looked down into the cloth held by the manservant. She took a step back and gasped lightly. The inside of the cloth was _covered_ in blood.

"He..." Lucy could feel the quiver in her voice. "...he vomits up blood?"

"No," Peter answered darkly. "his feet bleed."

"But..." What sort of illness made blood come out of a person's feet? "...why?"

"I don't know," said Peter in a choked up voice. "No one does."

Something besides fear and pity gripped Lucy's heart now, unbridled determination. Determination for what exactly, she wasn't sure. Only that she wanted to see him, to see the sick Narnian Prince, if it was allowed. The chances of her seeing him and knowing what ailed him when so many physicians, skilled and well-educated, could not, was unlikely, but surely it couldn't hurt to take a look. To see him for herself.

Peter must have understood this, for he opened the door a little wider and whispered, "Come on," knowing Lucy would follow him.

Thanks to the black curtains that covered the windows-of which there were only three to begin with-the room would have been completely dark if not for the oil-lamp on the grainy marble nightstand by the large, scarlet canopy-covered bed.

As she got nearer, Lucy could vaguely make out the outline of a slender, very pale, boy of about fourteen rather like Peter apart from the fact that his hair was dark while his elder brother's was fair; his glassy, unfocused eyes half-shut and his forehead drenched in sweat. Labored breath forced itself up through his weakly rising and falling chest, racked occasionally by a cough which made Peter clench his jaw, his expression a look of restrained inner panic.

"Ed," said Peter, announcing his presence, not sure if his brother had noticed him yet. "You awake?"

He coughed again, his body shaking violently until it was over.

"Hi, Pete," His voice was hoarse, but otherwise rather nice-at least to Lucy's taste. "Do you think you could convince father to let me out of this beastly hole and go back to my own room? I feel like a freak of nature living in the dark like this."

"We have a visitor, Edmund," Peter replied tersely, clearing his throat. "and you know I tried talking to father about that already."

Edmund moaned, and Lucy could tell that Peter instantly felt horrible about being stern with him, maybe even a little guilty.

"I'm sorry, Ed." he murmured, nudging Lucy forward just for the sake of a subject change. "Have you met Princess Lucy of Ettinsmoor?"

"Are you the princess that kicked him in the shins?" Edmund croaked, motioning over at his elder brother. "If so, you are officially my new hero."

"No, that was her sister," Peter winced, knowing his brother was trying to be up-beat in hopes that he wouldn't ask about his feet again, or at least would hold off until Lucy left the room. "I think I still have a mark from that."

Lucy giggled, finding it hard to stay somber even though she knew she really ought to. Edmund, liking her laugh, chuckled. Only the chuckle turned into a cough, which turned into another violent shake.

"Please go," gasped Edmund through a now-sore throat; he hated being seen like this, especially by his brother. "I need to rest."

"I'll come back later, I promise." Peter told him as they turned to leave.

Strangely enough, Lucy felt like promising that, too, and actually opened her mouth to do so before she realized how improper that would be. Susan would be appalled. Any courtier would be, really. Quickly, she snapped her mouth shut and followed Peter out of the chamber, looking over her shoulder to catch one last glimpse of sickly Prince Edmund.

"How long has he been sick?" she blurted out softly when they were out of ear-shot of the younger prince and his servants.

Peter was silent for a moment before replying, "It's complicated. He was pretty healthy up until he was about nine years old. Ironically, I was actually suffering from an illness at the time and a few of the physicians were convinced I was going to die, but I recovered. That was around the same time that Edmund seemed to get weaker. I mean, he wasn't ill like his is now-not by a long stretch-but he wasn't his old self, either. He would catch colds easier; he was prone to exhaustion; on occasion he would get very peculiar injuries. The local dwarf physician said it was a weakened immune system. Still, for the most part he seemed able to live a normal life, as long as he was careful. But, then..." The crown prince paused before going on. "...Then one day almost half a year ago, he didn't come down to breakfast. We didn't know what was wrong and father sent me to get him...he was so weak he couldn't even get out of bed."

That's not natural, Lucy thought to herself, its too uncanny, too mysterious, for an illness to progress like that...and even if it did...why would his feet bleed?

Back in the dark bedchamber, Edmund looked around through the slits in his worn-out, drooping eyelids, hoping his guess that he was completely alone at the moment was correct. That was another thing about this blasted room he hated: you could never be sure if a servant was going about their duties in the corner and simply being quiet about it, or if the place was actually deserted.

"Hello?" he tested weakly, resolving to pretend he was thirsty and had sat up because he wanted a drink of water if anyone was in there.

No answer.

Good, he inhaled deeply, bracing himself for another round of racking coughs before he could think clearly again. His chest was so heavy these days, he wouldn't have been surprised to learn he had pneumonia on top of everything else.

Reaching under his pillow, he pulled out the copper-sheathed dagger he kept hidden there. It was a reminder. A reminder that he was not free to do as he pleased, that it was best not to drag anyone else down with him. The urge to tell someone-anyone-what he truly went through was strong; the unbeatable yearning to just blurt it out, get it over with. Then he would look at the dagger. He would look at the dagger...and he would remember. This was his secret, his own curse, it concerned no one else.

Placing the dagger down on the nightstand by the oil-lamp, he reached under his pillow again and pulled out the empty diamond flask. The light from the lamp flickered dimly at it and made it twinkle. The flask was another memory-another thing to recall during his darkest hours, as they turned into dark days and then to endless dark weeks.


	6. Gold & Silver

It was a strange feeling for Susan: to be at court, in any castle, and not to be within the centre of attention. Remembering what she looked like now, that horrid reflection that had caused her to faint the first time she'd seen it, she was glad enough to be 'sick' in a comfortable bedchamber; but there were moments when it occurred to her how odd it was not to be gossiping with courtiers or strolling about on the arms of prospective suitors. Stranger still was the feeling that she would never do any of those things again.

On the bright side, she thought, trying to cheer herself up, I shall never have to walk about on the arm of that awful Tisroc's son-how they can call that whinny _thing_ a prince is beyond me.

Still, it might have been nice to be in the crown prince of Narnia's presence without fear of being seen and hated. He was nice enough, his manner pleasant, his voice adequately noble-sounding; if things had been different-they might have liked each other. It seemed rather unfair that the only time they had gotten to meet under normal circumstances they were little children; he had seemed like more of a pest than anything else back then.

Colour rushed to her cheeks at the memory of kicking him (yes, she actually _did_ remember, whatever she said otherwise about the matter). Of course she'd over-reacted, giving him such a hard boot to the shins, seeing as it was only one light poke on the cheek. But she hadn't liked boys back then. In comparison with her own delicate manners (even at such a tender age) the male variant of children seemed positively barbaric. Talking about going hunting some day when they were bigger, gnawing on the bones at supper like some sort of dog, running around and smashing into things at every turn they took in the castle. Not that Peter had been _quite_ that bad, but at such a young age Susan hadn't been able to see the difference. And he was still only a child; he couldn't help getting up to _some_ mischief which the little princess could only so easily turn her pretty nose up at.

Moaning, Susan kicked off the heavy silken comforter that she was lying under, got off of the bed, and contemplated opening the shutters that kept the guest chamber dark. She wasn't sure what it opened out to. It might have easily been the sea-depending on if the room faced east or not-or a garden, or even the courtyard itself. Someone might see her if she stuck her head out. She reached for the veil and then changed her mind; no need for that. There were other ways of getting light into the room.

A very prettily painted porcelain oil-lamp with a dimmer-switch key made of brass stood on the far-side table. It was very like the sort she used to light in the castle library back in Ettinsmoor. Turning it up so that there was enough light to see the chamber by, she took a look around. While the room was set up for an ill person's recovery, dark walls and heavy quilts, it was not completely devoid of pleasures. A silver tin evidently filled with some sort of treat-probably chocolate candies-shone brightly against the burgundy top of the fireplace mantel; a set of gold chessmen on a glass board gleamed regally in one corner.

Picking up the golden horse-headed knight gingerly between two fingers, Susan saw that its eyes were made of little rubies. She placed it back down on the board with a faint _ping_. In her mind she could imagine the windows open on a rainy day and the almost-musical sound of the drops hitting the board.

There was a knock at the door; Susan jumped up and quickly lowered the oil lamp, stationing herself in the darkest corner she could find, just in case.

"Princess, are you decent?" It was the crown prince.

"Go away," whispered Susan, murmuring mostly to herself, not even realizing she was speaking out loud.

"Beg pardon?" He didn't sound angry, just confused.

Her ugly cheeks flushed in the darkness; apparently she had been speaking louder than she had meant to.

"Can I come in?"

He can't see you in the dark, she tried to remind herself silently, willing her heart to stop pounding like a drum, there's nothing to be afraid of.

"Yes, your highness." she squeaked, hating how her voice sounded as though a mouse had just crawled over her foot. Well, perhaps because she was supposed to be ill, he would be gracious enough to attribute her awful tone to sickness and excuse it.

The oak-wood double doors opened half-way and Peter walked in. Although there was an oil-lamp lit, the room was only a few shades away from being pitch black. "Your Highness?"

Her stomach over-turned with glee; he really couldn't see her! What a relief. How stupid she felt for not replacing the veil before allowing him to come in-but of course that was absurd, it was his castle, he could come into whatever room he liked whenever he liked. Really, she was lucky he had manners and had asked her first. It would have been dreadful for him to have suddenly opened the doors before she had a chance to dim the lamp...her stomach turned again; she was going to be sick for real if this kept up.

"I'm over here," she assured him.

His head turned, following the sound of her voice. "By the Lion, why is it so dark in here?"

Susan knew she was about to start babbling, she knew it before her lips even began parting, but she couldn't help herself. Some nonsense about 'weak eyes' brought on by her illness and the need for as little light as possible to touch them spewed out. Pathetic as it was, she hoped he believed her.

Perhaps Peter would have been suspicious if his brother didn't have to rest in the dark day in and day out. As it was, he took her word for it and apologized for disturbing her. "I just wanted to see how you were holding up."

"I've got things well at hand, thanks." said Susan, not realizing how rude she sounded. "I can take care of myself."

"I didn't mean to suggest you couldn't, Princess." he replied, somewhat curt in the way he spoke her title, but otherwise very forgiving in his tone.

Sighing, he glanced back at the doors and then turned again to the corner where her voice was coming from. Not quite ready to leave yet, Peter settled himself down in one of the chairs close to the chess board.

"You-" Susan had meant to ask him if he was leaving yet, but she willed herself to shut up, biting onto her lower lip.

Laying his middle-finger absently on the tip of the king chessman's glittering gold crucifix, Peter asked, "Do you play?"

"What?"

"Do you play chess?"

"No," she lied automatically.

"No?" Something about the way she said it didn't seem quite right.

"I mean, yes, I do play." Susan amended bluntly. "My tutors and governesses taught me a long time ago."

"Are you feeling up to a game?" Peter offered, gesturing at the chair across from his.

She shook her head, forgetting that the whole point was that he couldn't see her-so of course he was still waiting for an answer.

"I promise to go easy on you," he teased.

"Are you sure it's all right for us to be in here alone?" Susan changed the subject. Back home in Ettinsmoor a crown prince alone in the guest chambers where a visiting young woman of rank was staying would have sent the place buzzing. People did seem more laid-back here in Narnia, but somehow it still seemed unusual.

Squinting, she could make out the contour of Peter's shoulders shrugging. "Who's going to bother about us? I highly doubt anyone else is going to mind if you don't." Thinking for a moment, he added, "I wouldn't go around announcing I was in here in front of Lord and Lady Scrubb-I highly doubt that would do us any favors-but other than that..."

"I get the idea." grumped Susan.

"So," Peter gestured at the chess board again. "How about it?"

Most of the dim light in the room spilled over onto where Peter's chair was; if she sat across from him, she could see his face, but she doubted he would be able to see hers. A game of chess might be fun, as long as the shadows didn't move. And as she had no intention of moving the oil-lamp so much as a half-inch from where it currently was, that seemed highly unlikely.

"One game." Susan edged over to her chair and sat down.

"I had a nice chat with your sister today," said Peter, making conversation.

"Yes, I know." she responded shortly.

"She's a pretty brave girl, I'm surprised she didn't faint when she saw my brother, most noblewoman would have in her place."

"I highly doubt your brother is _that_ handsome." Susan rolled her eyes, though he couldn't see her do it.

Throwing his shoulders back, Peter burst out laughing. It was one of the best laughs he'd had since the morning Edmund hadn't gotten out of bed.

"I only meant-" Susan disliked being laughed at.

Wiping laughter-tears from his eyes and taking in a deep breath, Peter explained, "No, not like that, your Highness. My brother is suffering from an unknown illness, he looks pretty ghastly right now."

"I'm sorry," Susan whispered, feeling wicked. "that was cruel of me."

"It's all right, you didn't know, and I got a good chuckle out of it."

"It was still-"

"It was nothing, it's fine." he assured her.

"Thank you."

Although Peter couldn't see her face or the shape of her body, he could see her hands when they reached for the chessman pieces, and as there wasn't much else to focus on, he found himself unwitting staring at them.

There was nothing the matter with her hands, they were exactly the same as they had been back when she wasn't ugly, but Susan still felt uneasy knowing the crown prince's gaze was so intensely fixed on them. Making it a point to move her pieces as quickly as possible and then withdraw her hands from sight, stuffing them into the folds of her dress, she got a poor grip on the pawn and accidentally knocked it-and four other pieces-over.

Hastily, she hurried to position them all upright again, not noticing that Peter was already doing so, inadvertently brushing the side of her hand against his.

Yanking her arm back with a bit too much force, she blurted out, "I think you should go."

Before Susan could feel guilty about this, Peter noticed the desperation in her voice and, because she was unwell, apologized for disturbing her, bowed stiffly and turned to leave. If she had known him better, she would have known that he wasn't really angry with her, but, barely knowing him at all, she simply assumed the worse and figured she had offended him.

She could have called after him; she could have said she was sorry; she could have told him she actually enjoyed his company when she wasn't afraid of it; she could have risked everything, stepping out from the shadows, and shown herself to him; she could have turned the lamps up, or allowed him to do so. She _could_ have, but she didn't.

"It's so dark in here," Lucy commented a while later when she came in to see her sister.

"That seems to be the phrase of the day," Susan muttered, reaching for a workbox she had found under the bed, deciding a little sewing was better than sitting around doing nothing and moping over her own wretchedness.

Common sense reminded her that she couldn't sew or embroider anything in the dark (and Lucy was the only one in the room with her now); she turned up the oil-lamp.

"That's better." said Lucy, tired of being in the dark, wondering how young Prince Edmund did it day in and day out.

"Mmm," Susan agreed, half-listening, a piece of silken thread in her mouth as she licked the tip to slip it through the eye of the needle she held in her other hand.

Watching the way her sister's eyes moved, intensely focused on the thread, Lucy could tell she was avoiding the mirror again. Part of her always wanted to comment on this also, to try to coax her sister to adjust...then she would remember the look on that sad, ugly face when she'd first seen it, recall how different Susan had once been, and she'd reconsider. Saying anything might only upset her more.

"Did you know that the crown prince's brother is dying?" Lucy asked.

Susan glanced up. "Yes," she answered cautiously.

"How?" She hadn't expected her to know.

"The crown prince told me," said Susan, knowing her cheeks were flushing, wishing she hadn't turned up the light after all.

"When?"

"In here," she said coolly, trying to make it sound as if she didn't really care. "earlier."

"Peter was here?"

"Uh-huh," Her fingers struggled with a knot in the thread, shaking slightly.

"He...he _saw_ you?"

"No, he did not." A rather self-righteous snort came from Susan at this.

Lucy's brows furrowed. "You were wearing the veil?"

Susan shook her head. "I wasn't; it was just too dark for him to see me."

"Oh, Su," Lucy didn't mean to, but she laughed rather merrily over this, as if it were a joke. "You don't mean you made _him_ sit in the dark, too?"

"I jolly-well didn't _make_ him do anything, Lucy," Susan replied hotly, her tone sterner than ever, incredulous at her little sister's reaction. "I'll have you know, he came in here on his own and proceeded to ask if I played chess. _I_ had nothing at all to do with it!"

"Who won?" Lucy said quietly after a moment of Susan glaring at her.

Her expression softened, her deformed cheeks pinker than ever. "No one."

"Huh?"

"I sort of kicked him out," she explained, looking away shamefully.

Lucy took a step closer to her sister's chair. "Why?"

I was afraid, Susan thought-but aloud she made no attempt at a reply.

"Supper will be soon," Lucy felt her stomach growl and changed the subject.

"That's nice." Susan said uncaringly.

"You aren't hungry?"

"Someone can bring me up something."

"You don't mean you aren't coming down?"

Susan put her sewing down and folded her arms across her chest. "Yes, that's exactly what I mean."

"The veil..." Lucy protested, not seeing why her sister couldn't just put it on again.

"Humph." Susan shook her head and picked up her sewing again. "I'm supposed to be ill, remember? Do you think the crown prince's brother 'goes down' to supper?"

"No one is going to believe you're half so ill as he is," Lucy retorted. "His feet bleed, you know."

That got her attention, it was too odd-sounding not to. "His _what_ bleed?"

"His feet," Lucy repeated sadly. "I wish I could help him."

"Why do his feet bleed?"

"I don't know, no one does." she said. "The king has offered a peck of silver to anyone who can figure it out."

"Don't get yourself into trouble, Lucy," said Susan, knowing what her sister was really thinking. "We don't need the money."

"It's not about the money, it's about helping that poor boy."

"You don't even know him."

"You didn't see his face," Lucy's lips parted and her eyes shone brightly with pity-tears. "he's very sick, Susan, and he's only a little older than I am."

"I'm sorry," Susan amended, reaching out and touching Lucy's arm. "I was being thoughtless. I love how deeply you care about people, Lucy, but you can't just...it's unseemly and it's hardly safe."

"What isn't safe about it?"

"Well," said Susan practically. "If it was as simple as you make out, someone would have cured him already. Besides, what if he's contagious or something?"

"Su!"

She held up her palm. "I meant no disrespect, princesses don't speak unkindly of the afflicted, it's rude for one thing and unlucky for another, I've only meant to warn you."

"Susan, I'm going to ask if I can try to help him at supper tonight." Lucy's tone was unwavering and firm, set and determined.

The Cair Paravel dinning hall was a bit more elegantly wild than the one Lucy had left behind in Ettinsmoor, longer white pillars and a roof made of Lion-patterned stain-glass. It was, perhaps, the difference between a city counsel house of gray stone and dark gold and a cathedral of marble and silk.

There seemed to be no particular order one was supposed to sit in at the table-unlike the king's line-up in Ettinsmoor-people sat where ever they pleased. Peter was, in fact, sitting down at the far end with Duke Clarence and Lady Pole, while the man who was presumably his father, King Frank, was sitting a-ways off from him, talking to a black-bearded dwarf in a purple satin doublet. Lord and Lady Scrubb, looking prim, sat at the head of the table, probably thinking it was their right, but proving little else besides the fact that they were stuck-up and thought themselves better than the court at large.

"Peter," Lucy whispered, walking over to the crown prince, already on familiar terms with him.

"Lucy!" His face, which had looked a little somber because he had been thinking about his brother again, Lady Pole and Duke Clarence trying to comfort him, brightened up when he saw her. "Come, sit."

She came; she sat. Lady Pole, dressed in a pretty Narnian violet-coloured evening gown with gold, crisscrossed glossy velvet sleeves, handed her a silver goblet of apple juice made from Cair Paravel's own local orchard.

Sipping the juice, Lucy took care not to drop any on her own rose-coloured, cuffed-sleeved dress, knowing she was rather prone to doing so when her mind was absent.

When she had placed the goblet down and smoothed out a crease in her skirt (Susan would have been so proud) the second princess of Ettinsmoor said, "Prince Peter, I want to help Edmund-I mean, your royal brother-and find out what's wrong with him, may I try?"

With the sole exception of Lady Pole, every maiden-many of them dryads-sitting at the table, spun their heads around, stared right at her, and gasped.

"What's she want a peck of silver for?" Lord Scrubb whispered much too loudly, breaking the quiet-spell that fell upon the hall after the collective gasp.

More whispering, both loud and soft, ensued.

King Frank glanced over the sparking rim of his wineglass at Lucy, his brows raised in curiosity.

Through it all, Lucy never took her eyes off of Peter, undeterred. "So, can I?"

Peter closed his eyes and winced. "No."


	7. The Magic Ribbon

Needless to say, Lucy was-to put it mildly-rather cross with Peter for his answer to her request at supper the night before. More than that, she couldn't understand it. Didn't he want his brother to get better? Wasn't that why he despaired? Why wouldn't he let her help? Angry, offended, and still ever-anxious over Prince Edmund's illness, she strolled the corridor with a blood-shot stare and lips pursed in concentration.

She saw Peter coming out of an arched doorway, clad in a brown leather jerkin, a rather guilty expression clouding his face when he recognized her. Her eyes met his and asked for the millionth time why he had said no so abruptly and refused to be moved on the matter. Guilt didn't change his resolve, however deeply it pained him, and Lucy could have no sympathy for him at that moment. Holding back tears, she shot him one last broken glance and then hurried off towards the doors that led to the gardens.

Watching her take off, Peter sighed and turned around on the heels of his boots. Life was impossible sometimes; how could he possibly be king over a whole country-the beautiful land of Narnia-when all he wanted was to crawl under a rock after refusing the request of an Ettinsmoor Princess? Tired though he was, there was no chance of a nap that day. There were meetings, tutoring sessions, visiting with Edmund, formal meals, and then, if there was any time left over afterward, he thought he would like to try to visit the elder Ettinsmoor Princess again-there was something about her that puzzled him deeply, and it was the first mystery in a long time he thought he even stood a chance at solving. And, he had to admit, he sort of liked her.

As for Lucy, she didn't stop when she reached the gardens, she was too worked up for that-her legs didn't want to stop moving. Onward she marched, going right into the apple orchard. Not even knowing why she was doing it, she began to run amongst the thick, sweet-smelling fruit trees until she stood panting breathlessly at an old stone well.

The water was clear where the shadows of the leafy trees above it did not block the sunlight, glittering right down to its dark bottom. If the bottom had been made of a reflective material, she would have seen her stricken face looking back at her still covered in unfaded raw determination, but it was only mossy gray stone, so she saw nothing.

A light snort of a whinny came from behind her and she spun around so quickly that she would have fallen right into the well if she hadn't gotten a grip on the slide, pushing her back forward so as not to tumble down it. There was a white horse standing a little ways off, and at first she thought it was Isbjorn, wondering how Susan's horse had gotten out of the stables.

Taking a curious step forward, Lucy could see that this horse was a good deal larger than her sister's white gelding, more like a stallion. Then she noticed the pearly horn and gasped from shock and delight. It was a unicorn! A beautiful, real-as-corn, mystical horned horse, all flawlessly white except for his grayish mouth, was standing before her. From that smooth gray mouth, hung a long ribbon of pale purple silk.

"Hallo!" said Lucy, reaching her hand out to stroke the unicorn's nose. "Were you here the whole time?"

The unicorn blinked at her.

"What's this?" Lucy reached up and took the ribbon from his mouth. Holding it in her hands, watching the light wind push the silk to and fro, she exclaimed, "It's so beautiful!"

There was something of a modest acknowledgement from the unicorn as Lucy giggled, spinning around with the ribbon flying all about her as if it were the tail of a kite.

For some reason she never understood afterwards, Lucy quite suddenly shook out the ribbon as if it were laundry she was about to hang on a clothesline, and as it fell back down from the air, lowering itself, it became, no longer a ribbon, but a cloak. A cloak of velvet so smooth that to run one's fingers along it, felt like moving them through water. The lining was silk, the same colour and texture as the ribbon had been.

"Oh!" gasped Lucy, her eyes widening.

Somehow she knew the unicorn wanted her to try it on; he had such a waiting look about him and took one step nearer for every moment she delayed. Of course she considered delaying just so she could be nearer still to the marvelous unicorn, but that seemed disrespectful, and as she was a very polite girl by nature and by her training as a princess, she threw it over her shoulders, flinging the surprisingly-heavy hood over her head and face.

She felt something sort of cold just below her neck and looked down to examine this. It was a gold clasp in the shape of a male Lion's head; a single large ruby clicked into the great beast's open mouth.

Fastening it, Lucy felt very odd, no longer sensing the touch of the ribbon-lining nor the heaviness of the hood on her head. In fact, she couldn't see the cloak, nor her own body anymore, either.

It took a few minutes for her to figure out where the clasp was now that she couldn't see it and just barely felt it, but the unicorn seemed patient, as if he was simply resigned to her confusion and awe.

The only thing Lucy could see of herself before she undid the ruby-Lion clasp were the tips of her long Narnian dress when the breeze blew them out from under the toe-length cloak. Being such an innocent, it took four times of fastening and unfastening the clasp, turning visible and invisible, until it occurred to her that she could use it to spy on Edmund and try to figure out what his illness was, if only Peter had given her permission. It did seem awfully rude to do so without permission, though she was greatly tempted and actually blurted out in her eagerness, "I _will_ do it, I don't care-I don't!"

Then the unicorn shook his head at her as if he understood and she recoiled sadly. "I'm sorry, it was rather nasty of me to say that, but I only want to help."

The unicorn made no motion to condemn nor to excuse her for this; he just went on looking at her steadily.

"It would be," she noted thoughtfully, in spite of everything, "easier to be invisible if this dress didn't give me away! A boy would have it so simple, wearing tights and tunics and jerkins and things!"

At this, the unicorn lowered himself down from his strong, solid hooves, onto his front knee-jolts, trying to show Princess Lucy something strapped to his back-a bundle all wrapped up in white silk.

Curious, Lucy untied the bundle and pulled out its contents: nobleman's clothing. There was a pair of wool tights so dark that she couldn't be sure if they were a very deep shade of midnight-blue or else simply black, a purple doublet with jade buttons and gold-thread, and a pale undershirt embroidered with a silver-loop pattern. They were much too large for a dwarf, but small enough that they wouldn't have fit Peter, slender as he was. Edmund might have managed, though, Lucy could help thinking, they might have even been a mite big on him seeing as he had-in her brief glimpse of him-seemed lean from his illness.

That was what tipped her off so that she looked more carefully at the undershirt's right sleeve. Sure enough, spotting an E embroidered in the same silver as the loop pattern.

"These belong to Prince Edmund, don't they?" Lucy asked the unicorn flat out, even though she didn't exactly expect him to answer her.

She fancied she did see a nod and hear a light snort, however, but she knew Susan would have said it was pure rot, only her imagination. Maybe it didn't matter. She wasn't sure how the unicorn had gotten Prince Edmund's clothes, but it mightn't necessarily have been through stealing, they might have just as easily been cast-offs; she'd have never kept them if she thought they were stolen goods. All the same, Lucy felt that perhaps with the prince's clothes and the magical cloak that came from a purple ribbon, she might just solve the mystery from the inside. If only she could convince Peter to let her try.

"I do wish-" Lucy sighed, turning her back on the unicorn for one moment, looking back to the well sorrowfully, fearing the uncertainty of the whole endeavor. She wanted to help the prince; but something told her it was going to be much harder than it seemed. Nevertheless, she had to find a way to go about it. Perhaps the unicorn would help her, maybe he knew something about all this, if only he could talk.

When she looked back, however, Lucy found the unicorn was gone; left without making a single sound or attempting a goodbye. The open bundle still remained in her hands. Hastily, she wrapped it up again, and the cloak became a ribbon once more, looping and tying itself around the bundle without the slightest warning.

Hmm, thought Lucy, tucking the silken bundle under her arm and marching back towards Cair Paravel, that was strange.

Shortly after Lucy's peculiar discovery at the well, Peter managed to slip away from his tutors-earlier even than he had planned to do so-and visit the 'sick' eldest princess of Ettinsmoor. He wondered, rather distractedly, unfocused on whatever he was actually supposed to be learning, if she had heard of his refusing her sister the right to help his brother. If she had, for perhaps Lucy might have told her, there seemed to be a good chance of her being cross. After all, Susan was a proud girl; proud for herself, and for her little sister, besides. Peter could only hope she would let him explain, but remembering her anxious, unsteady demeanor the last time he'd spoken to her, it seemed a little doubtful.

She might even dislike him for what he had said; but he didn't want her to dislike him, he wanted her to understand. Cringing just the littlest bit to himself, Peter lifted his hand and knocked on the double doors. If his thoughts had not been so clouded with frustration and guilt, he might have thought it strange that he could see actual light pouring from the bottom of the doors, when Princess Susan claimed she needed to be in darkness for her bad eye-sight due to illness, but for one reason or another, the thought never occurred to him.

He thought he heard a girl's voice answering his knock, and she didn't sound at all cross. Strangely, she didn't sound very much like Susan, either. But as Susan's voice was constantly changing its tone when he was around (which she, in a rather been-there-done-that manner, attributed to illness), there really wasn't enough reason for him to find this suspicious, and he was glad enough at being admitted.

Afterwards, the girl who had been in the chamber at the time always claimed that she had not said, "Come in," but Peter always was quite-though apologetically so-insistent that she had; and as Peter was a gentleman, and a crown prince destined to rule all of Narnia one day, it is unlikely that he would tell such a silly lie. Apparently, he honestly believed someone had answered his knock and his coming in had been completely innocent.

What he discovered, not without a sudden jolt of fast-striking shock, was not Susan after all; it was Lucy, in the middle of the room, the dress she'd been wearing earlier cast aside messily over the bed-post (Susan would have clicked her tongue disapprovingly at this, had she been there).

Lucy was just straightening out, not a lady's bodice at her waist, but a boy's doublet-a very familiar doublet.

Childishly, Peter almost reached up to rub his eyes, then remembered and caught himself, blinking lightly instead.

Lucy's own eyes blinked-then widened with surprise-when she saw him standing there in the doorway, trying to force the corner of his mouth that was slightly agape back into its proper position.

"It's not what you think!" she blurted out piteously.

"I was thinking-" Peter began, trying not to laugh now that the shock was wearing off (one must admit that it would have been rather funny under normal circumstances), "-that I've found my missing clothes."

"Yours?" Lucy blurted stupidly; she had assumed they were Edmund's. "I thought they were-"

Knowing what she was thinking, he chuckled, "They-at least the doublet, I'm pretty sure-were mine once, back when I was his age, then they were his for a while."

"Oh."

"I _was_ thinking something else, Lu." he said, not unkindly, in spite of the no-nonsense trace in his tone that reminded her just a little of Susan. "Why are you wearing my-I mean, Ed's-doublet?"

Her cheeks reddened, but their hue was not as intense as it would have been on very nearly any other girl caught trying on a boy's clothing; Susan would have been scandalized, even Jill Pole would have been horribly ashamed. However, Lucy-because it was just her way-was only brought to a mild blush and a glance that had something of an apology in it if studied closely enough.

"Someone gave them to me," said Lucy, "and I'm sorry if it upsets you, really, but I only want to help-please say I can."

"You don't mean this is still about my brother?" said Peter, aghast at her forwardness.

She nodded. "It is."

"I said no to protect you," Peter told her in a slow, fatherly tone. "Not because I don't care about my brother. I love my brother deeply; but I wont have the whole world perishing for his sake."

Lucy couldn't help being stunned, for Peter looked as if he was just barely holding himself back from thrusting his face into his hands. "How do you mean?"

"Remember before," He reached for her hand and squeezed it lightly. "when you asked me about people who had tried for the peck of silver?"

"Yes," answered Lucy quietly. "You said no one important had-" she paused and swallowed. "-had tried."

"No one important." Peter restated firmly. "But people did try, and nothing good became of them."

Lucy grimaced involuntarily, waiting. What horrors had befallen those who had wanted to help the prince so that his elder brother, the one who ought to be the bravest in the kingdom, feared it? Not for himself, but for others.

"Four men, not of rank, power, or even of good-nature, which in itself would have been more useful, tried their hands at helping him because they wanted wealth." said Peter, sounding like he was telling a dark fire-side story, his face so serious, however, that it was so obviously truth rather than fable. "Two are missing, one is dead, and the last was committed."

"Committed?" asked Lucy, very confused at this. "Committed to helping?"

Peter laughed bitterly. "No, little princess, committed to an asylum."

"But, what for?"

"The man-a calormene who had been living at Cair Paravel for less than two years, if it makes any difference-raved like a lunatic about Edmund being cursed, dancing all night with demons in deadly forms."

"He was quite mad, then?" Lucy guessed softly, glancing up at Peter for confirmation.

The crown prince shrugged. "Probably. Father thought he was, anyway."

"Don't you?"

"Well," Peter volunteered slowly. "honestly? Yes, I think he's insane; so was the now-dead man who claimed witchcraft was afoot; my brother is not a witch, nor a witch's servant, I know that."

Trusting though she was, Lucy caught the catch in his voice and asked about it.

"I _know_ those men were crazy, they were hardly stable _before_ they yearned for that peck of silver, but all the same there is something that happens to Edmund at night, and I don't know what it is.

"I've tried staying up with him, but something always happens to me. It gets so dark that I can't see anything in the room, I grope about, but I can't find a light, not a single candle, though I always leave plenty of them around. It's like being in a dream but I know I'm not really asleep, and I'm not even sure if the bed chamber is still around me. Then, the darkness lifts, and I'm in my chair opening my eyes-but I swear, Lucy, I never shut them. And I can't remember anything...and there's Edmund, in bed, sick as a dog, same as before, if not worse."

Now Lucy had another question. "But if you've stayed with him, Peter, in the dark, how do you know he wasn't there in the dark with you?"

Peter shrugged. "I just do, Lucy, I feel it in my bones. I know it sounds stupid-don't you think I'm aware of that?-but it's not."

"I believe you," Lucy assured him.

"So you see-"

"I still want to help." She wasn't about to let it go.

"You want to help while wearing my brother's doublet?"

"Long story," Lucy giggled.

"I see..."

"Please, Peter, I'm going to ask again: can I help?"

His mind was chanting 'NO!' over and over but his lips moved and said something completely different this time. He nearly hated himself for it; he wanted to throw himself off of a high tower for being so weak and stupid; but he couldn't help himself. "Yes."


	8. The first Midnight begins

Where was Susan during Peter's visit-when he accidentally spotted Lucy in his old doublet and finally agreed to let her try to help his brother? Well, she had been, believe it or not, outside-taking a short walk. Of course she wore the veil the whole time, telling the precious few who's curiosity were peeked enough for them to inquire about it that she wore it to protect her eyes from the sun. The 'sick' claim was, now that she seemed doomed to be for ever ugly, always her best defense. She didn't particularly like pity, nor she did actually want it, but it was better-far, far better-than disgust. To imagine lifting the veil in front of anyone besides innocent, careless Lucy! Oh, it was too horrid to even consider!

She was still warding off remaining shudders from the thought when she arrived back at her bed chamber. Out of habit, Lucy dimmed the oil-lamps, knowing that, unless her elder sister intended to do some sewing, she probably didn't want the room to be bright enough that she might see her reflection staring back at her from the mirror by mistake.

"I hate public life now," Susan commented glumly as she took off the veil and set it aside. "It's so secluded."

"That's because you're pretending to be sick," Lucy couldn't help reminding her. "Everyone thinks you're trying to recover."

"Well, we both know I never will." she answered darkly. "We're going to leave, aren't we, after they-I mean, you-figure out what's wrong with Prince Edmund?"

In truth, Lucy didn't want to leave Cair Paravel; not even when the mystery was solved. She loved this court and she was very fond of everyone in it-except maybe for Lord and Lady Scrubb. But, she remembered that she had promised to stick by Susan, so if her sister meant to leave, she would likely have to go too. Maybe she would change her mind, though; Susan couldn't be bitter over her circumstances for ever, could she?

Early that evening, directly before supper, Lucy went to Peter and asked what time she ought to be ready to enter Edmund's chamber that night.

"Oh, Lucy, I thought you understood!" said Peter in a bewildered tone.

Not knowing what he was talking about, she frowned at him, hoping he didn't intend to go back on his word so quickly.

In as few words as possible, the crown prince explained that he hadn't meant that she be allowed to attempt to solve the mystery of his brother's illness at night-he had _assumed_ she would be working at piecing it together during the daylight hours.

Needless to point out, Lucy was rather indignant at this and expressed her displeasure in a manner that would have made Susan cringe; but Peter understood and amended with apologetic-rather unkingly considering how he'd been brought up-stammering. He was still, at first, rather insistent that she not try anything at night, reminding her of his own stumbling in the darkness, yet her adamant resolve never waned and the crown prince was-wearily-forced to give in when all was said and done.

So after Lucy had a quick supper and made small talk with those who were still talking to her (a few were 'sucking up' to Lady Scrubb who thought Lucy was being vulgar going into her young nephew's bed chamber at night, and some others were unnerved by how intense her desire to help the prince was), she left the dinning hall, escorted by Peter, two guards, a serving maid, and an old housekeeper woman who's job it was to clean the north wing every third Sunday (one could often see her dozing in a rocking-chair placed in one of the less busy corridors). The group took her up to the younger prince's sick chamber (for, of course, he refused-still-to call it his bed chamber, determined as ever to be allowed to leave it and return to his former room) then all except Peter and the housekeeper woman bid her goodbye and left in a formal, courtly manner.

"Edmund?" Peter called into the room, knocking and entering on the same breath just in case his brother was too tired to answer, or else asleep.

The young prince looked worse than before; he was paler than his previously-white bed-sheets, and his body was getting painfully thin. In one horrified glance towards his brother's nightstand, Peter noticed that Edmund had not so much as touched his food that day. When he mustered up the courage to ask if he had at least been drinking enough water; the servants replied, "He drinks a little."

"In other words: hardly at all?" Peter said sharply, as he strongly disliked being patronized, even when he needed it.

The servants tightly pressed their lips shut and nodded sadly.

Lucy watched the tragic figure in the bed and found she could momentarily forget that he was a prince. In his weak state he wore no crown and while his nightclothes were fine enough, there was nothing that stood out about them, and she couldn't help thinking that he just looked like any poor boy might. He was a prince, technically, but in her eyes he was only a sickly, frightened boy-young enough to have been a companion of hers if he had been well. It was so sad to think of him like that. She couldn't help wondering what sort of things he'd liked to do before he had gotten so ill. Was he any good at sports? Did he like horses and riding? Was he interested in hunting? She knew some boys his age were. Maybe he liked books just like she and her sister did. Or he could be fond of chess and card games like Peter seemed to be. He could have been very like his quiet-but-kindly father; grave and thoughtful, but friendly under it all. But as long as he was sick, she'd never know.

Edmund shivered and clung with one of his hands, tightly to the edge of the sheet closest to him, safe in that place between sleeping and being awake. It was safe because when he slept he dreamed and was afraid, and when he was awake, he felt his own pain and weakness and shied away from even his inner self; this was the one place he had left. But he was leaving it slowly, he knew he was; he could already hear his brother calling his name; he could even sense that there was someone else in the room, too. The prince wasn't sure who it was, but he guessed it was a female and thought of the little princess from Ettinsmoor.

Opening his eyes, he found he was quite right: it _was_ the princess, though why she had returned at this time remained a mystery.

Then Peter spoke up. "Princess Lucy is going to sit up with you tonight, Ed."

His lips trembled, stuck together from dryness and saliva, before he managed to part them and say in a rather disgusted, cough-racked tone, "Why?"

"Er..." Peter coughed into his hand to clear his throat. "...she wants to try to find out why you're ill."

"She's not going to find out any-" he stopped and moaned as he shifted one bloodied foot. "-thing from sitting around staring at me all night. Wasn't it bad enough that I had to put up with that bizarre calormene who hovered over me muttering the law of Tash for eight hours, claiming I was going to go Hell for my sins?"

"I'm sorry, Ed," said Peter, trying to keep his voice light and cheerful, willing himself not to cry over his brother's distress again. "But I think we can make Lucy promise not to say a single word about Tash all night."

"I promise." Lucy giggled, feeling a little better as she looked away from the sickly boy in the bed, over at his healthy older brother.

Staring hard at her in the dimly-lit room, the corners of Edmund's mouth turned up ever so slightly, and he murmured hoarsely, "Well, so long as she promises."

An extra candle was brought in for Lucy to read by along with a few books from the Cair Paravel library, should she grow restless. She sat quietly for an hour reading a very interesting novel by a famous (or infamous, depending on how you looked at it) Narnian author and almost forgot what she was there for, pinching herself and placing the book down when she felt she was getting too involved and not paying enough attention to Edmund.

In her defense, Edmund wasn't doing much besides blinking at her occasionally and ignoring her by turn, not giving so much as a half-clue regarding whatever ailed him. Peter sat in a chair on her left and he didn't look very hopeful, either.

At nearly ten of the clock, the crown prince rose and said he was retiring to his own bed chamber for the night, asking Lucy if she would like to do the same.

A short, "Of course not!" came from her, just as he had suspected it would. Sighing heavily, he kissed her lightly on the cheek in an endearing, brotherly fashion (the housekeeper would have been scandalized, but she was already asleep, snoring louder even than the sick prince did whenever sleep claimed him) and left the chamber with a heavy heart, feeling somehow that it was the end of a false era of innocence and safety he would have liked to cling to all the same.

"You're still here?" Edmund whispered faintly at eleven, keeping his eyes closed while he spoke.

Lucy jumped a little in her chair, surprised that he was talking to her now. "Yes."

"I think you should go, you aren't going to figure anything out, trust me." He started coughing and groaning again.

"I wont go," said Lucy, with surprising meekness.

He sighed and rolled over. She thought she could vaguely hear him crying to himself but never commented on this afterwards, not wishing to embarrass him.

Because he wasn't looking and it was getting later, Lucy started unbuttoning the front of her dress so that she could slide it off without notice. Under it, she wore Peter's (Edmund's?) doublet and the rest of the boy clothing the unicorn had given her. When she reached the button around her waist, she unlooped a long piece of silk ribbon and shook it out.

The wind from it blew out her candle; but she could feel that it was a cloak again, keeping her fingers wrapped around the material protectively. Something deep within her told her she was going to need to use it very soon, even if she couldn't possibly guess why.

Feeling more and more awake as she sat there, eyes wide in the darkness, ever holding-fast to the cloak, Lucy waited for an hour that felt both like a year and like a minute at the same time. The clock in the nearest corridor began to chime midnight and the coldest shiver she had ever felt ran up her spine, dripping back down slowly, merciless as ice.

Grunting softly, Prince Edmund pushed back his sheets and comforters and stood up. His feet ached; there were still the marks and sores of bloodied-up spots on them, but he stood straight up all the same, bracing himself, enduring the pain in spite of the fact that it felt like knives were cutting into his soles.

What's he doing? Lucy wondered, expecting, if only for a moment, for him to reach for his glass of water, maybe look out the window, and then go back to sleep.

But if Edmund had done any of those things, then this story would have been changed beyond recognition, and Lucy would have found out nothing at all and Narnia would have been in horrible danger.

So, in light of all that, Edmund walked-wincing with every excruciating step-over to the closet where his clothing was stored, taking out a pair of brown tights, russet breaches, and a loose white shirt. He dressed himself quickly (though Lucy was stunned and confused, she had the decency to look away while he did this-even in the dark) and threw a greatcoat made of greenish, grainy-coloured wool over himself to keep warm.

Sensing that he was done, heading towards the door now, Lucy ducked behind the chair she had been sitting in up until that point, lest he by some odd chance notice her and-squinting-realize she was in boy clothes. Watching him carefully, she saw him look around the room briefly, wondering if he was looking for her, but uncertain that he was, seeing as his glassy eyes looked incoherent and half-maddened. _Poor Edmund..._

Because he was slowly creaking the door open and slipping out, Lucy hastily threw the cloak over herself, tossed the hood over her head, and fastened the clasp. There was no flowing dress to give her away this time; she followed the prince unnoticed through the darkened castle which seemed so different, at this ungodly hour, from the Cair Paravel she knew and loved so well.

Once, she heard him cry out, biting onto his lower lip to muffle the noise that would just barely be muffled. Edmund's hurt feet had almost given way under him, his body was shaking violently even under the warm greatcoat, and he clung to the wall for support. Part of Lucy was fairly dying to rush over and help him up, but she caught herself and held off, making herself little more than a pair of eyes staring at this horrid occurrence with all the sorrow and intensity it deserved.

It took a great deal of struggling-and hurrying through the struggling-but eventually, Edmund made it the stables. He stopped for a moment at the place where Susan's horse was and blinked in confusion-the horse was the wrong colour and he didn't seem smart enough to speak.

"I'm over here!" a voice called to him.

The prince spun around and saw his horse-a talking brown gelding named Phillip-was in a different stall. Actually, Phillip had been in a different stall since two days before Susan and Lucy had even arrived at Cair Paravel, but Edmund was half-delirious, and at such moments couldn't help getting his times mixed up. Phillip had at one point been in that stall, so he looked in there first, out of a forgotten habit-picked up again in his distraught state.

"Oh!" Edmund coughed and wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his greatcoat. "There you are, Phillip."

"Master," said the little brown horse, a pleading look in his eyes. "You should be in bed so that you can get better. Why do you make me carry you off every night?"

"Do as you're told." Edmund croaked; the same way he always did when Phillip asked him that question-usually once a night at least.

"I cannot..." Phillip had made up his mind that he could no longer contribute to Edmund's illness. He didn't know where it was that he carried his beloved young master to, only that he was allowed to go just part of the way, and that it was making the prince sicker with each passing night.

"With or without you, Phillip, I'm going." said Edmund, glancing back over at Isbjorn.

Lucy frowned, a little disappointed in him for so readily thinking of stealing her sister's horse-it didn't take much to follow his line of thought as far as that went.

"That's the princess of Ettinsmoor's horse," Phillip told him honourably. "Puddleglum brought him here."

Edmund started coughing again, nearly falling over.

Kindness took over the brown gelding's heart; he couldn't let his master go out on a dumb beast that couldn't protect him if a strange wild animal should sense he was weak and attack. "I'll take you-where ever it is."

Without even bothering to put a saddle on his horse, Edmund jumped up onto the creature's back, ready to set off.

Lucy, lest she be left behind, fumbled up onto the edge of the stable-board, between the low rafters, and took a complete leap of faith onto the horse's back behind him. Shielded by the invisibly cloak, the horse could neither see nor feel her there. As for Edmund, even when Lucy had to grab onto his waist for fear she would fall off as Phillip broke into a canter, he didn't notice her presence-it seemed quite the same as any other night would have.

He rode onward.


	9. Dancing & Lies

If Lucy had not already thought something was horribly wrong, she thought it now, as Phillip's canter became a gallop-as they went further and further away from Cair Paravel, into a dense wood-or maybe, though it was too dark to say for sure, a forest.

Silvery-white moonlight fluttered in and out from the gaps in the lush tree-tops above them; and though such rum light was unreliable, Lucy thought she saw-she almost could have sworn it-something go out of Phillip's eyes. Something like intelligence. It seemed that the further on they went, the less the talking horse looked...well, like a _talking_ horse. When his ears began to prick at the slightest cracking twig and his tail started swaying back and forth in a rather dumb-animal manner, she was convinced.

See, it was like this: Phillip _thought_ he only carried his master part of the way to the place of his cursing, but that wasn't actually true. He carried him _all_ of the way, uncomprehendingly, not to gain back his old talking self until it was over. The brave gelding was a talking beast as long as they were in possible danger from wild speechless animals, but as soon as they had left those areas behind, his very thoughts and eyes were transformed. Edmund knew of this, had always known of this, but never told Phillip of it for fear of putting his proud horse to shame.

Lucy, as invisible as ever, was appalled. She had heard of talking beasts reverting to their old ways, but only as punishment from Aslan: the great Lion of Narnia, never in a context such as this. And never had she imagined a poor creature forced to go back and forth. Worse still was knowing that whatever it was that happened to Edmund must be so dreadful that what became of Phillip every night was nothing next to it.

The young princess of Ettinsmoor shuddered and-without thinking-tightened her grip on Edmund's waist. For the most part, the Narnian prince didn't feel it; however, he sensed something was different and was confused for a moment before another round of coughs cleared his thoughts.

"Almost there," he whispered to himself, his throat feeling like fire while he spoke.

You poor boy, thought Lucy, broken by the sadness in his tone and by the raspy voice that spoke those words.

Edmund moaned and held his head with his right hand for a moment before digging his heels into Phillip's side, urging him to keep going.

A tear escaped Lucy's heart and-more noteworthy-her left eye; and it fell away from her face down into the collar of Edmund's greatcoat. As soon as the teardrop was no longer touching the princess's face, it became visible and the prince felt the warm droplet of water on his neck, wondering if it was about to start raining. Looking up, he didn't think so-the starry sky seemed clear enough, not a single cloud to be seen.

Suddenly the trees thinned out a bit and those that existed still along a white-pebble path had leaves that twinkled like diamonds with some hard, round things sticking off of the tips of their branches.

Stretching as quickly and steadily as she could so that she didn't fall off Phillip's back in the process, Lucy grabbed onto a branch and pulled one of the round things off to examine it more closely. It was the perfect likeness of a crackernut, only it was hard and made of what felt like solid silver. If there was any real nut inside, it was nearly impossible to get at, and it seemed doubtful that there actually _was_ , anyway.

Beyond the crackernut trees loomed a great hill that would have been a rich, lush winter-green in the daylight but gleamed with a grayish-purple hue at this dark bewitching hour.

For a moment it seemed as though Edmund intended to ride Phillip right into the side of the hill until a harsh collision made them come to a stop, and of course Lucy was horrified-and even a little scared for herself, unsure if the cloak of invisibility could protect her in such a rough accident when push came to shove. But then, thankfully, a glimmer of sense shone through Edmund's feverish mind and he pulled on the reins to make his horse halt.

"Courtyard in another realm," croaked Edmund. "Let me and my horse pass through."

"And me," whispered Lucy under her breath.

Edmund didn't hear her.

Part of the hill slid away to reveal a golden gate which opened of its own accord-wide enough for Edmund, Phillip, and Lucy to pass through. For a full minute there seemed to be no light-they all seemed to be nowhere, neither here or there, in a place between worlds and realms. This was actually one of Edmund's favorite places to be; because nothing-good or bad-ever happened in such a place, just like when you weren't awake but you weren't sleeping either.

Then they were fairly engulfed in light; Lucy wondered that they weren't blinded (Susan would have said it was impossible) and worried about Edmund's eyes-so used to the dark sick chamber-being exposed to such brilliance. Gemstones glittered, diamond windows glinted, lamps burned as bright as the sun.

When she was finally able to stop blinking, Lucy attempted to get down from the horse and fell off, seeing nothing but a screwed-up purple blob in front of her. She bumped into someone as she crashed, and though he noticed her, no one else seemed to. He was a funny sort of creature, she thought, taking him in, certainly not human-or at least not _all_ human.

His feet were not feet at all, rather, they were hooves like a goats. They were covered in glossy dark-brown fur that lasted up to his pinkish-white torso, beyond that he was very much a little human-like man in appearance except for the two horns that stuck out of his curly hair. She knew what he was now; he was a faun.

"Ouch!" said the faun, looking around for whoever had just banged right into him, but finding no one.

"If anyone is allowed to say that-" coughed Edmund rather sulkily, "-it really ought to be me."

The faun glanced at him sympathetically. "You look terrible, your Highness."

"I know," said Edmund. "Please help me down, I can't move, my legs ache from the ride."

"Yes, your Highness," the faun answered, lifting the prince down from Phillip's back and signaling for another goaty creature-a satyr-to take the horse away for the time being.

"Thank you, Master Tumnus," Edmund murmured, so weak that he could barely stand up without using the side of the faun's arm for support.

"You should not have come." Tumnus said wearily, somewhat thoughtless in his tone.

"I had-have-to." Edmund reminded him. "You know that."

" _She_ should not make you come; not when you're like this." Master Tumnus amended.

"You tell her that, then." the prince hissed hoarsely. "I'll start writing your obituary."

"If you die, can I have your book collection?" a little gray dwarf so small he might have passed for a gnome asked Tumnus with a hopeful grin.

"Um, no." Tumnus answered shortly.

Edmund chuckled mildly and Lucy-who had retreated to a corner to watch him and see what he would do next-felt her heart thump happily for a second before it turned from pretty merriment to another coughing fit.

"Here," Tumnus produced a long-necked diamond bottle of spiced wine and filled up a wineglass for the young prince.

"Thanks." Edmund swallowed the whole glass-full in one gulp and then held it out again, signaling for Tumnus to refill it.

"Oh...all right..." he poured some more wine into the glass, clearly surprised that Edmund had drunk it down so quickly. "Don't drink yourself into a stupor now, you need to be able to stand up at the very least."

"Not _straight_ up!" Edmund laughed annoyingly (Lucy didn't like _this_ laugh), rather like a drunk even though he was still mostly sober. He didn't drink because he liked it, he drank because it numbed the pain he was in, especially his ever-bleeding feet.

Tumnus didn't protest, although Lucy thought he looked very much as if he wanted to say something about it, he simply loosened his grip on Edmund slowly enough so that the boy regained his balance without falling over-however much he lurched in the process.

Master Tumnus seemed like a nice faun-indeed, Lucy already found she liked him, and was fairly certain it wasn't his fault that Prince Edmund suffered. She gathered that he was a servant of sorts who did not agree with his mistress's way of doing things (for of course it _was_ a mistress, as Lucy had clearly heard him say 'she' in a very direct tone). As to who the mistress was and what she wanted with the young sickly prince, she didn't know, but was more determined than ever to find out.

Soon, poor innocent Lucy thought (with all sincerity at the time), this will all be over; Edmund will go back home and I will follow him, and I will tell Peter all about this so that he can fix it. It never occurred to her that maybe there were some things the crown prince _couldn't_ fix, even if he learned of them.

She had been so lost in thought over what she would tell Peter and how relieved everyone would be that the mystery was over and Edmund was safe at last, that she almost forgot to follow Tumnus and Edmund, and had to scamper after them. Thankfully, Edmund's hurt feet slowed him down and Tumnus would not go faster and leave him, thus making it easier for a certain invisible little princess to keep up.

If she had thought the room they had just been in was painfully bright, she hadn't known what bright was; this next room was far brighter but somehow easier to stand. The purple blob had stopped swimming in front of her eyes so that she could see again; and she saw that they were in a ballroom now.

It was a glorious ballroom with transparent walls that showed gardens that seemed as much a part of the room as the high ceilings and the diamond-and-ruby chandelier hanging from it. The floors smelled like sandalwood; but they looked remarkably like cherry-wood, glossier than Tumnus's leg fur, gleaming like a mirror.

"It is such a pretty place," Lucy commented to herself, as though deeply surprised. Perhaps, being light and pure herself, she had expected anything wicked enough to harm a little boy of barely fourteen had to be ugly and cruel, and was thus bewildered to find the conventional ideas shattered.

They were all the more shattered when she saw the beautiful persons that inhabited the room. A few were not so beautiful, only half-goat fauns like Master Tumnus was, yet charming in their own ways, but the women-like creatures-all the queen's ladies-and the young men at their sides were striking to behold. Nearly all of their handsome young men were many years their junior because they were their sons; and quite a few of the ones older than they were happened to be their brothers; only a few were actually husbands of the court. For it was a court, one very different from both Ettinsmoor and Cair Paravel, one not governed by humans.

"Fairies," breathed Lucy, pressing an unseen palm to her invisible mouth, knowing now what they must be. She had heard-as all children who are thoughtful and imaginative can make themselves hear-stories of this very court and had even believed in it once. Actually, she still believed in it, and not only because she could see it now with her own eyes, either.

A tall, stately fairy-woman holding-in her right hand-a wand the shape of a peacock feather with its ivy ever-clinging to it, twinkling, entered the ballroom and smiled at Edmund. It wasn't a vicious smile-Lucy might have lost her cool and lunged at her if it had been-but it wasn't exactly a kind one anymore than it was a bland, pointless up-curling. There was something in the smile that a human couldn't easily read, not one of our emotions, something belonging to the fairy-realm entirely. Perhaps explaining such a look is like explaining red to a person who was born blind, or explaining what a sprit creature is like to a man born fleshly-quite impossible.

"Welcome, Prince Edmund," said the fairy queen, lowering her beautiful golden head in a sort of half-bow. "How was your journey?"

Dazed, not by the queen, but by his own sickliness and from having swallowed his wine too quickly, his lips moved stupidly, but no words came out.

As if completely oblivious to his state, the queen smiled that fairy-smile again (it was starting to get rather on Lucy's last nerve, vicious or not vicious) and told him he might join in the festivities.

"Perhaps he might sit down a bit first?" Master Tumnus dared to ask. "The Prince has eaten nothing yet, and he's tired, I'd expect-"

The fairy-queen's eyes flashed. "Nonsense; he's been sitting down the whole ride here, hasn't he? Or has the boy taken to standing up on his horse?"

Master Tumnus clearly wanted to say something else, but he was afraid, for his own sake and for that of the royal boy he had long ago befriended and worried-after. So the faun wisely lowered his eyes and shut his mouth, keeping his remaining thoughts to himself.

"Witch!" Lucy exclaimed under her breath angrily in spite of the fact that the creature in question was not actually a witch. She had thought fairies would be likable creatures, but this queen was either quite stupid or mindlessly cruel, no matter how beautiful she might be.

"Tumnus," Edmund whispered hoarsely, "remember to set the couch close to the dance-floor this time, I don't fancy hitting my head again when I collapse."

"Yes, your Highness," answered Master Tumnus, going off to make sure it was done just as the prince had ordered.

What is he talking about? Lucy couldn't help wondering in horrified awe. Just what did Edmund mean by 'when I collapse'? And what were these fairies going to do to him? Was this what happened every single night?

Then the poor little princess who thought she had known true misery and woe through her once proud and beautiful sister's loss, discovered that, until that very moment, she had known nothing of pain and suffering. Until she saw the sight with her own two eyes, nothing in her life had been tragic enough to leave a mark on her heart and a scar on her innocent mind.

The fairies all danced, but they went about it happily enough, escorted by fauns and some willowy-persons called dryads in Narnia but probably something else in this realm. Edmund danced with them, his face unmoved save for when he winced and closed his eyes. The dancing went on and on and on until the young prince of Narnia let out a breathless gasp and fell to the side just like a tree that has been cut down. Lucy half-expected someone to shout, "Timber!"

Thanks to Tumnus's diligent obedience, Edmund landed on a soft velvet-cushioned couch, his eyes half-closed and his mouth hanging open like a washed-up cod-fish gasping for air.

Most of the fairies didn't so much as blink in reaction, but Lucy noticed a very little fairy-girl in a pretty, high-necked ball-gown, probably allowed to stay up late for the first time in her young life, who's eyes widened and-whether it was from the shock of the prince fainting or else from being sleepy-filled with tears.

To comfort the little fairy-girl (who really couldn't have been older than eight or so at most) an older fairy, an elder sister of hers, thrust a teeny silver wand into her sweet, rosy-pink hand.

"Hush, Gael! Go play in the corner until bedtime." the fairy hissed shortly.

A new thought and an amusing object will distract very nearly any child-except for the most sensitive-and so Gael shrugged her little shoulders and placed the tip of the wand in her mouth, sucking on it as a baby might suck on their thumb for comfort.

"Fan him until he rises." The fairy queen ordered her ladies absently, rolling her eyes. Such weak little creatures humans were! And this was supposed to be one of their princes! Ridiculous! No wonder the frail things were always dying off or growing old until their bodies stopped working. Even their royalty was deficient!

It took twenty minutes of the fairy-ladies waving leaves in front of his face until Edmund opened his eyes all the way and remembered that he must keep dancing until it was time to leave. He rose and-to Lucy's horror-danced for another hour before Tumnus took his arm and led him back to Phillip.

"If only King Frank and Peter knew!" Lucy nearly wept to herself. "They'd bar the doors so he couldn't come here every night." Unless it was the darkness that kept them from doing it. At any rate, she would tell them all about it the second they came to take her away from Edmund's sick chamber. Then they could take precautions.

Before she jumped up onto Phillip's back, Lucy happened to glance down at Edmund's feet in the stirrups (Tumnus, seeing that the prince had not put a saddle on his horse before coming to court, had been kind enough to loan him one for the ride back). At once she felt like she wanted to vomit; his worn-out, white feet were covered in blood.

They rode back quickly, and when they were nearing the stables of Cair Paravel, Lucy saw the saddle disappear and the talking-expression come back into Phillip's eyes.

Through the deserted corridors she followed the young Narnian prince back up to his sick chamber and watched him fall into bed, shivering. A faint trace of teardrops glittered in his eyes as he pulled the covers over his head.

While Lucy still had no idea why Edmund had danced with the fairies until nearly dawn (the sun was coming up now), she pitied him deeply, as he had obviously not enjoyed himself and would have been better off getting his rest.

The princess's loving pity lasted in all of its intensity until Peter arrived to take her away from the chamber and she blurted the whole story out in a hurry, her face burning hot with eagerness.

Peter's brow crinkled and he looked over at the sickly Edmund, noticing that his brother looked even worse than he had the day before. "What's all this, Ed?"

Edmund coughed and forced himself to sit up, shooting Lucy a superior look as if he were a grown man of twenty-five and she was naught but a silly seven-year-old making up a story for fun. "You really ought not to have left this _child_ in here all night, Peter. You know what little children are like these days-they just..." he looked Lucy dead in the face and gave her an angry, almost betrayed expression. "...don't know when to stop pretending."

Tears of frustration made Lucy's over-anxious eyes smart and she hoped desperately that Peter wouldn't listen to his brother, that he would believe _her_ instead.

The crown prince was conflicted. On the one hand, Lucy had never lied to him and he trusted her; also, she did look truthful. But the story that had rolled off of her tongue so wildly did seem impossible, even if it did sort of volunteer an explanation for the bleeding feet. Edmund, on the other hand, was known to lie frequently enough, while not meaning any real harm most of the time. Still, to disbelieve his own brother who looked so helpless...who stuck to his story with his glassy-eyes and deep cough nearly killing him...no, Peter dared not call his brother a liar in such a state, it might be too wicked of him, it was Lucy who had to go down on this one.

"Peter!" Lucy tried again, ignoring Edmund's anger, knowing it was for his own good. "Listen to me! It's all true; Edmund goes to the fairy-court and dances all night and that's why-"

Peter shook his head. "That's enough, Lucy, my brother's illness isn't a joke-and it's certainly not a fairy-story."

"But Peter!"

"I said," Peter's glaze tightened into a glare, convinced now that Princess Lucy was having a joke at his brother's expense. "That's _enough_."

He had never been so stern with her before and she was immediately heartbroken. She had to make him understand or Edmund might just go back again and maybe the next he fell down he wouldn't get up.

"I have proof!" Lucy exclaimed, remembering the silver crackernut she'd swiped from the tree.

"No you don't," Edmund said rather cockily for a sick person.

She rummaged around for it, thinking she had put the nut in the folds of her dress after she'd slipped it over the doublet, only to find that it wasn't there. "But I really did have-"

"I'm really disappointed in you, Lucy." said Peter, clenching his jaw and leaving the chamber without even bothering to take her with him.

Furious, Lucy wouldn't even _look_ at Edmund as she ran out of the chamber, holding the magic ribbon crumpled in her hand as crinkled as her belief in good-nature.

When she was gone, Edmund closed his eyes and let a couple of tears fall. The whole time Peter and Lucy had been talking, he'd had one fist clenched-neither of them had noticed. Now that he was alone, he opened his fist. In the middle of his pale, cold-sweat drenched palm he held Lucy's silver crackernut.


	10. Royal Bitterness

Susan's chamber was no longer pitch black; the curtains on one of the least conspicuous windows were pulled open to let some light in, but of course, she wore the veil to 'protect her eyes'.

Her pride made her claim she had simply gotten tired of being in the dark, but that wasn't really true. The elder princess of Ettinsmoor had developed rather a hatred for lighted rooms ever since she was cursed with ugliness and was too proud to allow herself to step out of the shadows. Even now, in her own chamber, wearing her veiled headdress, she stood mostly in the places where the dressers blocked the light and cast black lines against the carpet below her feet.

The real reason she had allowed herself to let the light in, was because she had the oddest feeling that the crown prince-though he had no reason to-would call again today, and she would not let herself be shamed by having a royal visitor sitting in the dark with her again. Ugly or not, she was, in her core, a princess. Princess Susan of Ettinsmoor; once beloved of the people-adored of the court.

You are a princess, she scolded herself silently, so _be_ a princess.

The knock came; the crown prince was at the door, hoping he would not find the tear-stained face of the younger princess but the hidden one of the elder, instead. Anything to relieve him of the guilt. For he did feel guilty, in spite of the trust he placed so firmly and unwaveringly in his sick brother's hands. There was a spot in his heart that was little Lucy's from the moment the sweet girl had arrived at court, a brotherly-even fatherly-protective affection that nagged at him constantly and made his ribs ache at the thought of her displeasure. He was disappointed in her, he did not believe her, he had made up his mind. But it pained him. It pained him deeply.

His conviction that Lucy had told a lie-and a rather silly one at that-didn't fade, yet it made him uneasy. After all, if someone were to hear of her saying that and recall to mind the calormene and his tale of Edmund dancing with demons and suspect Lucy of the same insanity...oh, Aslan, it should be too awful for words! If anyone might accuse them of favoritism towards their own because they would not commit the insane princess (the people of Ettinsmoor were of a closer race to the Narnians and Archenlanders than the Calormenes were), it might even be a cause of war! Peter's head spun wildly; he knew he must calm down at once, he was being extreme. No one who spoke to dear Lucy for more than five seconds would think she was a threat, especially in comparison to the raving Calormene who'd screamed himself quite hoarse over the matter. And a child's fairies were not at all the same things as demons; Peter had always felt rather put-out with the sort of people who put them in the same category.

"Good day, crown prince," Susan greeted him with a bit of awkward stiffness in her tone. It was uncomfortable to be around him, both because she was ugly and did not want him to see her, and because she had heard already-news traveled fast-of his disbelieving her sister's story. In truth, she didn't believe it either, it seemed too dreadfully fantastic to be more than just a fable, but that didn't make seeing this young royal any easier.

"Your eyes are improving, Princess?" he asked, trying-somewhat unsuccessfully-to put a more verbal warmth between them.

"No," she replied quickly, lest he should ever even _suggest_ she remove her veil. "I may be ill for ever."

"No one is ill for ever,"

"Your brother is."

Peter winced at her directness.

"I'm sorry," Susan amended. "I'm being vile, you must hate me."

"I don't," said Peter, coming all the way into the room and shutting the door behind him so that they couldn't be over-heard. "I'm only pained because I know it isn't true."

"What isn't true?"

"My brother-" Peter swallowed hard. "-my brother will not be for ever ill."

"He will get better?"

"No."

Susan closed her eyes behind the veil and moaned inwardly, feeling sorry both for the invalid boy and for the sad-eyed young man in front of her. She wished she could say something that didn't sound heartless, that she wasn't so bitter. The crown prince of Narnia deserved a better companion; why he came back to see her she couldn't fathom.

Peter knew she was clever enough to understand what he was insinuating without his flat-out repeating that his brother would eventually die. There was no hope of the boy getting better. Everyone at court knew that-sooner or later-their youngest prince would leave them all. Everyone knew someday the little white body with the bloodied feet would be buried in a marble tomb-probably near the orchard, or maybe close to the eastern sea. Edmund was unlikely to live to see his fifteenth birthday; he would be fourteen for ever, the princeling who never grew up. No one looked to him for political power anymore, they looked only to his elder brother-the stronger, older prince who would one day be their king.

"Sometimes I wish I could be the one who never aged, who died before-" Peter stopped himself; these were his thoughts, but he had never shared them before, not with anyone. Perhaps he felt that Susan would somehow understand. "-Ed wouldn't be a bad king, the people would love him, in time."

"You wish you could switch places with him," Susan noted, not seeming terribly surprised.

"You state it."

"Yes," said Susan, "I've noticed how you act about it."

"He's my brother, Susan." No more bothering with formal titles for the time being. "I don't know if I can endure to rule an entire country without him."

"Lucy really wanted to help him, you do know that..."

Peter sighed, half-wanting to cry. "I know," -he thought of the sad little tear-stained face and the ache plagued him again- "she's a good girl."

It was pathetic-almost laughable-how Peter described Lucy's behavior, but Susan didn't scoff at it-because she felt the same way. "I never thought she _could_ save him, though."

"Nor did I," Peter admitted sadly. Except, maybe, deep down in the part of his heart where he liked to believe in the impossible, he wanted to think she could, that maybe there was something...but, no, she had already failed. It was sad to think that an innocent girl had to be humiliated over his brother's unavoidable death.

Meantime, Lucy was standing rather sadly in one of the back corridors; the ones with window-sized arches that over-looked some of the flower-and-vegetable gardens. Her eyes lingered on rows of beets and poppies but she took none of it in, blinded by held-back tears, her knuckles quite white from gripping the bottom sill of the arch so tightly. The slightly chill wind whipped meanly at her cheeks-it was not a very warm day-and she didn't even care. She felt all alone, and not only because there was no one else in the corridor with her. The crown prince's not believing her story had left her as little more than an apparition in Cair Paravel's court. How she could possibly stand knowing why Edmund was dying and just watch him fade away as helplessly as if she hadn't a clue, was beyond her.

"How did you do it?" a raspy voice behind her asked, making her jump.

Edmund stood behind her, sickly as ever, clutching onto a gold-and-oak cane for support, wobbling over towards her.

"Do what?" Lucy wiped her tears away on the back of her sleeve; she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry, not again, not after how he had treated her that morning.

"How did you follow me?" he clarified with a hollow cough.

"Do the servants know you're out of bed?" Lucy asked pointedly. She owed him no explanation.

"No," Edmund croaked, his eyes narrowing, "and you're not going to tell them."

"Of course not, your highness." said Lucy bitterly, sounding a little like Susan when she was in one of her more stuck-up moods. "You'll only lie again."

Those words stung more than he let on. "I only do what I have to and, besides, you can't prove I lied."

"I shouldn't have to," she whispered, the tears returning in spite of her best efforts. "I've never told a single untruth to your brother."

Edmund knew he'd told a hundred 'untruths' to Peter, and that wasn't even counting all the petty ones having nothing to do with his secret. He felt bad about it; there was no real reason Peter should believe him, except that they were brothers.

"Lucy," Edmund said softly, reaching out with one hand, still clutching the cane as tightly as he could with the other. "Come back with me to my sick chamber, I want to show you something."

I wont go with him, Lucy thought indignantly, I wont!

"Forgive me," he murmured hoarsely.

"Why should I?"

"Because, Lucy of Ettinsmoor, you are a merciful princess." There seemed to be some level of teasing in his words, though she couldn't be sure because of the weak voice that spoke them.

"You are perfectly beastly, do you know that?" Lucy scowled tartly.

"I was nine years old, do you know that?"

She was taken aback. "What?"

"When I was cursed, or rather, when I cursed myself."

"What did you do?" Lucy shivered and took a step backwards, afraid of the answer. "Why-"

"I'll tell you," Edmund said. "I will tell you everything-I'll lie if you try to tell another living soul-but since you already know, I'll tell you."

A new thought occurred to her and her brows furrowed angrily at him. " _You_ took the crackernut, didn't you?"

"Of course I did." he rolled his eyes.

"How dare you!"

"Lucy, I can't stand up much longer, I'll fall down if I keep this up, come back with me."

Sensing his desperation, Lucy agreed, but only on one condition. "If I come back with you now, you take me back with you to the fairy court tonight."

Edmund gritted his teeth at her. "Never!"

"Then you go back to your chamber alone," Lucy masked her eagerness to forgive and forget, hoping to weaken his resolve.

"I hate you." Edmund coughed furiously, his face hot with the embarrassment of being so harshly dealt with. He couldn't believe he'd almost given this girl-this stupid, thoughtless, stuck-up girl-his secret in its entirety. She didn't deserve it.

"I only wanted to help you." she said sort of quietly.

Leaning close to her face, angry, tired, and frustrated, Edmund hissed, "I don't _want_ your help."

"You almost told me-" Lucy started.

"Forget it," Edmund snapped. "I don't want to tell you anything. I don't even like you! Just bloody leave me alone!"

 _You_ came to see _me_ , she couldn't help thinking to herself as she bit her lower lip and started walking away.

Edmund hated himself-he didn't mean a word of what he'd just said. He did like her-and that only made it worse. He had been fine with everything...he had accepted his fate...and then this...this girl, this princess, this child destined to someday grow up and become a woman after he was long dead...had come into the picture. He did not need a reason to regret giving up his life.


	11. The Second Midnight

That evening, the curtains drawn once more, the lamps dimmed and the workbox put away, nothing needing to be darned, Susan found she was feeling a little lonely. She wished Lucy would come in to see her and stay for a while, but she guessed it was unlikely. While her little sister-rather stiffly-continued looking in on her and making sure she was all right, ever loyal and constant and steadfast as always, she no longer lingered.

Of course Lucy had a right to feel upset that her own sister took Peter's side over the matter of Edmund's illness, disbelieving her so-called fairy-story after all they'd been through, but from logical, practical Susan, she really ought to have known better than to expect anything different. Even if Peter _had_ believed Lucy, Susan might have been a little skeptical, needing to be convinced.

Still, it was more that Lucy wanted to be alone to cry without confused, concerned glances hovering over her than it was out-right anger. She felt a little ashamed of herself as well, part of her wishing she'd learned of Edmund's secret when he'd given her the chance. But even if she had done so, even if she had come to know everything, Prince Edmund had told her-to her face-that he would lie if she tried to tell anyone. What was the point, then?

Maybe, a nagging voice in her head muttered scoldingly, you could have helped him on your own, but now you might never know.

Curling up into a small ball in the centre of the unmade, ruffled comforter on her bed in her own guest chamber, Lucy clutched the magic ribbon in her hands, buried her face in the satin pillows, and wept.

Susan, nothing else for it, began to wonder what she could do until she felt sleepy. She was tired of resting, or rather, of feigning resting. All day long to maintain her story that she was 'gravely ill with poor eyes' she pretended to be weak and just short of constantly bed-ridden. In her slowly-increasing boredom, she had even hemmed the frayed edges on one of the windows' curtains before she closed them.

It was early in the evening yet; downstairs, people would still be taking meals and laughing, maybe even dancing. Susan missed dancing-she had loved it once. One couldn't dance without being seen, though. Nor could a sick person be expected to dance. What a pity.

A new thought occurred to her: while she couldn't dance or be merry with the court, why shouldn't she go down to them and take a look around the place? She'd hardly been out of her chamber with the exception of a few short walks, and the courtiers weren't likely to call her bluff simply because she entered the dinning hall. Besides, she wouldn't speak to anyone-no need to call attention to herself-she would just see what it was like, maybe watch a little of the dancing and swipe a bit of the supper. Being discreet and covered, no one would take any notice of her. At least, _most_ of the courtiers wouldn't-they'd be too busy drinking wine and telling jokes and what-not. Crown Prince Peter might greet her, out of courtly kindness, and she felt a little flushed at the idea of him walking over to her and speaking to her in public, never knowing how hideous she was.

If she was resolved to walk in amongst the rest of the court unbidden, however, Susan thought she might at least wear something nice, even if pretty things were a little wasted on her unattractive person. If she couldn't dance, she could at least dress up-another old habit she missed from her former stylish life. The gown she picked was a shimmering cobalt-and-navy brocade with white silken thread around the low-necked collar. Such a nicely flowing garment of good quality-one of her old favorites.

It occurred to her as she turned up the oil-lamps and examined herself in the mirror that the veiled headdress didn't match and made her look rather foolish. Someone might laugh at her silly choice of accessory no matter what she might claim regarding her 'weak eyes'. She took off the veil and grimaced. Susan hated being the subject of a joke, but being an ugly freak was worse.

She almost made up her mind not to leave her chamber after all, but then she found something tucked away in the folds of one of her other dresses that changed her mind. A white-gold-and-silver mask she had once worn to a costume ball. Unlike the veil, it matched her choice of evening-wear, and hope returned as she tried it on and studied its effect.

It wasn't quite as concealing as she would have liked, though it did successfully cover her forehead, nose, and cheeks. With the veil, no one had been able to see her dull eyes; they were plainly visible through the holes in her mask. And her slightly-twisted chin, while not exactly the ugliest of her deformed features, was not something she felt comfortable exposing so much of. In short, the mask was good at covering up her worst features, but not so good at hinting that she was pretty under it. It would have been a lie, of course, but she would have liked that lie. The face under the mask-the simple, unexpressive eyes-all had to belong to a plain girl at the very least.

I can't do this, Susan thought brokenly, I can't face a court- _any_ court!

Her mother's white-gold Christmas Rose pendant gleamed on her same-as-it-ever-was neck and she reached up to touch it gingerly, sighing deeply. She thought of her mother's portrait; important and stately as well as beautiful. So she-Susan-wasn't beautiful anymore, there was nothing she could do about that, but if her vanity wouldn't even let her be pleased with being _plain_ , then maybe she wasn't being a good enough princess. Not everyone disliked her; Lucy loved her devotedly still, of course, and Peter talked to her. He might even talk to her tonight if she could get over herself and leave the chamber.

Swallowing her pride in the form of a frightened lump in her throat, Susan took a deep breath and walked out of the chamber into the corridor and slowly made her way downstairs to the dinning hall.

The first people she saw there were-unfortunately-Lord and Lady Scrubb, over-dressed in ruffles and bright-coloured silk, but she ignored them and they didn't seem to notice her. Lady Jill Pole, in a simply lovely evening dress of pale green with an ermine-fur cape over her shoulders and sleeves, sat by Duke Clarence-Susan was starting to wonder if it was just her or if they were _always_ together-and laughed at something he said. King Frank chuckled diplomatically, holding his silver goblet of wine up for show whenever a joke was told, but Susan didn't think he was actually amused; he was probably worrying about his doomed younger son.

Where was Peter? It came to her mind suddenly that he was the only one she really wanted to see, and she even wondered if bothering to leave her chamber would have been worth it if he wasn't there. Finally she spotted him over in the far-corner of the room. He had been there the whole time; she wondered why she hadn't recognized him at once and thought it must have been because, out here in the middle of the pretend-merry court, tired and anxious, he looked different, older somehow.

He was not enjoying himself, and unlike his father, did not pretend otherwise. His own little brother, his confidant and playmate all through both his courtly and personal life was going to die-what was there to pretend to be glad _about_? That he would have to press on and hold-fast because, as the eldest, Narnia needed him to be strong? The physician had been to see the younger prince again late that afternoon; he had said Edmund might expire any day, that they should be prepared-at very nearly every second-for the worst, before making a long speech about Narnia which seemed to have little-to-nothing to do with the crown prince's dying brother.

In such internal suffering, dealing with such thoughts, Peter didn't feel much of anything anymore. Not anger when he was insulted, not happiness when he was praised, not the slightest bit of mirth when something humorous was stated, nothing at all.

"Hullo,"

Someone was speaking to him; Peter turned his head half-way to see who it was. A young lady-obviously a courtier-in a splendid gown, a single piece of simple jewelry around her neck, wearing a mask. It was probably just as well that she did, for she appeared to be nothing extraordinary to look at if her blank eyes were any indication. He did feel something after all: irritation.

Peter was in no mood to make small talk, but because he was brought up never to ignore a noblewoman's presence, he did the next best thing. He nodded briefly and started to walk away from her, preferring to be alone.

"Your Highness," the lady tried, taking a few timid steps in a half-hearted attempt to follow him.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and kept walking. For some reason Peter had not recognized Susan's voice-perhaps he was too tired to place it, or else she just didn't speak up loud enough for fear of drawing attention to herself. Whatever it was, he had no interest in the 'noblewoman' who had approached him, having more important things to concern himself with. If he had known it was Susan, he would have been delighted and would certainly not have snubbed her, but he hadn't a clue.

"Peter," Susan tried one last time before he got too far away.

Peter turned around and frowned at her, wondering why she was so persistent. "Don't address me informally."

He was looking straight at her now, right into her face-masked or not-and he didn't think anything of her. In her hurt pride, Susan fancied he knew exactly who she was, she imagined she saw a vague flash of recognition in his eyes that he would not acknowledge. She thought he must be ashamed of her apparent plainness and that he would have been worse if he knew what she really looked like. Most of all, she felt rejected.

"I beg pardon, your Highness," she said stiffly, playing the part of the courtier in disgrace just for show.

He felt bad about being so harsh with her. "Its all right, I'm-"

If he was going to blurt out a pity-apology, she didn't want to hear it, she curtseyed and walked away.

Preparing to leave the dinning hall, Susan peered back over her shoulder as if hoping-if she dared to hope-that he was looking for her, that he was at least watching her leave with some regret, but he wasn't even watching her out of the corner of his eye-he had already forgotten her. She left no mark on him, he cared nothing for her.

"Goodbye, Peter." Susan whispered under her breath, closing her eyes sadly, unwilling to let herself cry over such a small display of disinterest. It meant nothing to her...yes, actually, it did.

An hour later, Lucy came into her sister's chamber and found the unsightly young lady with her long dark hair hanging straight down, sitting by the fireplace, no mask or veil to hide her deformed face. Although Susan held her favorite embroidering needle in her hand and a piece of undecorated white linen rested in her lap, she wasn't actually working with them, she was just staring off into the reddish-orange glow with a sad, forlorn expression.

"Susan?" said Lucy nervously, gently placing a hand on her elder sister's arm.

"This is what I am now," Susan said grimly, blinking away a row of tears. "Sad, isn't it?"

"Are you all right?" Lucy could tell something had happened.

"I'm fine," her sister lied.

"You're not." she retorted firmly.

"I'm not," Susan gave in wearily. "He completely ignored me, Lu."

"Who?"

"Peter."

"When?"

"I went down to the dinning hall earlier, I wanted to see him," Susan explained slowly, "and he blew me off-he could tell I wasn't pretty."

Lucy thought her sister was being a bit over-sensitive, but-annoying as it was-it was understandable after all she'd been through. "I'm sure he didn't mean-"

"I thought he was my friend,"

"Oh, Susan!" A sudden spark from the fire in front of them showed something else on her sister's face that surprised her. "You love him, don't you?"

Susan turned up her crooked nose at that. "You're a perfect goose, Lucy, don't be absurd."

"I've never seen you like this," Lucy pointed out quietly, "and you've had dozens of suitors." There had been plenty of noblemen back in Ettinsmoor who were in love with Susan, simply dying for her to look upon them with favor, and if it had been any of them, even the most desirable of the lot, who had snubbed her, Susan wouldn't have reacted in such a hopeless, defeated manner.

"I don't love him," Susan whispered. "You should get to bed."

"Why?"

"Because it's late, that's why!"

Lucy pouted and folded her arms across her chest. "Not that!"

"Go to bed, Lu."

"I wont," said Lucy, "I'm going to sit up with Edmund again tonight."

For the moment, Susan was turned aside from her own woes and laments, and was stricken with horror over her sister's words. "Lucy, Peter will not escort you tonight, nothing has been planned-"

"So?" demanded Lucy. She was angry with Edmund still, she had cried over their argument and over his lingering illness, but that didn't change her resolve. "So what? He's already said I can help him, and I will."

"Lucy, sweetheart, you blew it." Susan said gently. "And it wasn't your fault, you can't...you just can't help him...it's too late."

"Goodnight, Susan." Lucy left the chamber; she didn't need any smelly escort, or her sister's blessing, or Edmund to take her to the fairy-court willingly; she'd followed on her own once, there was no reason she couldn't do so again.

The corridor was so dark that Lucy accidentally bumped her face against the wood of the doors leading into Edmund's sick chamber. She muttered an exclamation of pain under her breath, rubbed her nose (which had gotten the hardest knock), and let herself in.

There was a servant present, Lucy knew he was there because he snored very loudly and talked about marriage alliances and lowering taxes in his sleep, but he was a very, very old man with a rough, grizzled chin and white hair who she probably couldn't wake up if she was trying to. Susan would have been rather scandalized over the matter if she had been in Lucy's place, thinking it a very foolish thing to leave such an unhelpful servant in attendance to a dying prince; and in that she probably would have been quite right. Lucy, however, was more concerned with Edmund himself and with not getting herself 'shown out' of the sick chamber, so she was glad enough for the servant's ineptness.

Edmund was asleep at the moment, though he shifted constantly and coughed every four seconds, his forehead dripping with sweat-both hot and cold by turn.

"Poor thing," murmured Lucy, forgetting all of her former anger, fighting back an unexpected urge to give him a gentle pat on the hand.

Just as she had the night before, the princess took off her decoy-dress so that she was in her doublet and tights, and then shook out the magic ribbon. She had worried that it might not work because of being so crumpled all day, but it became a cloak as easily as it had on the last night. Muttering a quick prayer, she fastened the clasp and waited for midnight to come.

Needless to say, Edmund rose at midnight, dressed himself, and went down to the stables. This time he remembered to put a saddle on Phillip, but in his delirium did it so poorly that the brown gelding suggested that going bare-back might be preferable to seriously injuring himself over the saddle. Too tired and glassy-eyed to argue (Prince Edmund could just barely keep his head from lurching to the side), he agreed and hopped on. Lucy jumped on behind him.

When they had almost reached the fairy-court and Phillip was more dumb-beast than talking creature, Edmund let out a dry-heave (he would have vomited, but he had been able to hold nothing down in his stomach so there really wasn't anything for him to throw-up), shook violently, and almost fell right off of the horse's back.

"Edmund!" Lucy couldn't help blurting out, giving herself away as she grabbed onto the back of his tunic so that he didn't tumble to the ground.

Edmund was so dizzy he could barely think to breathe, never-mind to wonder at Lucy's following him again, but somewhere in the very back of his thoughts he knew she was right there and sort of wanted to smack her for being stupid enough to put herself in such danger.

I have to help him, Lucy thought desperately, I _have_ to make Peter believe me this time-Edmund's too weak to keep making this trip every night.

But what could she do? If she tried to take back a token, something to prove that her story was true, Edmund would only steal it again. For some unknown reason he was as desperate to keep his secret as Lucy was to reveal it. They were like enemies that were friends. Nevertheless, she couldn't live with herself if she didn't try again; she'd swipe another crackernut from the trees-goodness knew there were enough of them-and hope for the best.

Then it struck her. Why take only one crackernut? One crackernut could be stolen or lost easily enough, but if she gathered a whole lot of them, surely Edmund wouldn't be able to confiscate every single nut. She'd take a dozen or so and hide them all over her person, she decided. In the magic cloak, in her doublet pocket, in the toes of her tights, in the folds of her dress when she got back to Cair Paravel. Quickly, Lucy began snapping as many as she could possibly carry off of the trees.

Vaguely, Edmund was aware of what she was doing and, if he didn't admire her as deeply as he secretly did, would have attempted to push her-and her crackernuts-off the horse, leaving her behind. Part of him still wanted to, but he couldn't do it. He couldn't hurt Lucy, invisible or not, he couldn't harm her.

They rode through the green hill again and, trying to act as if he didn't care that she had obviously come against his will, Edmund left Phillip with Tumnus and went off to dance with the fairies.

While her concern made Lucy want to keep her eyes on Edmund every single minute to be sure he didn't die right there in the middle of the court, a little sliver of common sense that Susan had spent years trying to hammer into her adventurous mind burst through and reminded her that she needed to find out more about what was happening, and she couldn't do that by watching the crown prince's brother dance until he passed out. Instead, she watched the court, trying to find out their thoughts and feelings, why they kept Edmund there each night.

There didn't seem to be very much that the fairy-ladies would give away, their expressions almost all emotions a human could never read or understand. Except maybe for little Gael, who Lucy noticed was still playing with the wand she had been sucking on the night before. Gael's face was like that of any court-bred child, flushed with excitement and false-intrigue, thinking her little self jolly important but being completely harmless about it.

Something tugged at the front of Lucy's undershirt and doublet, and she realized that somehow or other she had gotten the clasp of the invisibility cloak caught in the fabric and that it was pulling at her uncomfortably, struggling to keep making her invisible. Swiftly, she retreated to a near-by antechamber and tried to fix it.

It might have been far more clever of her to have taken her arms out all the way and put her armloads of crackernuts down on a couch until she had finished adjusting the cloak, but she was hesitant to let go of the only proof she had of Edmund's nightly visits to the fairy-court even for a minute. So she lost her grip, dropped the nuts onto the floor where they bounced around like silver dice, slipped on one of them, snapped the clasp open by mistake, and tumbled to the floor fully-visible just as someone walked in.

"Ahhhhhhh!" screamed the someone, crying out in astonishment; it was Master Tumnus, and he was darting behind one of the larger couches.

Startled, Lucy screamed, too, until she regained composure and started laughing heartily in spite of the situation.

Master Tumnus peered at her curiously from behind the couch but did not come out to confront her.

"Were you hiding from me?" Lucy asked sort of quietly as she bent down to pick up the scattered crackernuts.

A little embarrassed, Tumnus came out and started helping her gather up the crackernuts, trying-and failing-not to crack a shy smile. "No...I, um, I just...didn't want to scare you."

Lucy giggled. "Thanks,"

"You're welcome," said Tumnus very politely.

"It's very nice to meet you." Lucy stretched out her hand to shake his, but he didn't seem to know what he was supposed to do with it. Sensing the awkwardness, she gradually lowered it, wondering if maybe handshaking wasn't the custom in the fairy realm, or if fauns simply knew nothing of such things.

"My name is Tumnus."

"I know," said Lucy, "you're a friend of Edmund's, aren't you?"

"Who?" Tumnus looked genuinely confused.

Lucy crinkled her forehead.

"Oh, you mean Prince Edmund of Narnia?" the faun asked graciously, as if there was anyone else she could have possibly meant.

Lucy nodded and felt a lump come up into her throat. What if she couldn't help him-the faun couldn't, it seemed-and he really did...really did _die_? Tears sprang up into her eyes and she sat down on the couch, biting onto her lower lip, unable to make herself be calm again.

"Oh, don't cry..." Master Tumnus hated watching girls cry-it was unsettling. "...here, you might need this more than I do." He pulled a handkerchief out from under the dark blue muffler he wore around his neck and handed it to her.

"Thank you," Lucy took it and wiped her eyes.

"Now, then," the faun said kindly, "let's hear your story. Who are you and what are you doing here?"

Lucy took a deep breath and told him everything; her whole story from start to finish.


	12. Proof & Wands

"That's quite a story, Lucy of Ettinsmoor," sighed Master Tumnus when the princess finished her account of what had brought her to the fairy-court.

"But it isn't over yet," Lucy said boldly. "It shan't be over until I can help him."

The faun sighed again, gently reaching over to squeeze the top of her hand. "I wish I could do something, but I am afraid I cannot."

"Why does he come here, Master Tumnus?" asked Lucy, her eyes wide with longing for knowledge-she had to have _something_ to go on. "Why doesn't he stay at Cair Paravel and rest so that he can get better?"

"I'm afraid I don't know-at least, not exactly-the whole story," Tumnus told her. "But I think it is something to do with the crown prince."

"Peter?" Lucy's forehead crinkled and she looked perplexed.

"I heard one of the fairy queen's closest ladies say something about the over-tenderness of the human heart and how lucky fairies were not to be plagued with such a thing; and of course, when he is at his most delirious, not knowing what he is muttering off about, Edmund himself has told me bits and pieces of the story."

"And what _is_ that story?" Lucy held her breath, waiting for an answer.

"As I said before, I don't know the whole thing, but I gather that when Prince Edmund was nine years old, his elder brother was gravely ill-perhaps even nearly as ill as he himself is now."

Something in Lucy's mind clicked at these words; Peter himself had mentioned being ill before Edmund started weakening, and Edmund's own words rang in her head: "I was nine years old, do you know that?"

Ever so slowly, Lucy's cheeks began to lose their colour, growing quite white, and her lips parted as she swallowed hard and blinked back a couple fresh tears. "Edmund made some sort of bargain with the fairy queen so that his brother would get well again, didn't he?"

"That is what I would guess," said Tumnus unsurely, his tone very modest.

"If you don't mind my asking, how did you come into all of this, Master Tumnus?"

"Ah," said the faun, "now that is quite simple, actually. Many years ago my great grandfather and great uncles made some sort of deal with the fairy queen-I'm not sure if it was even the same one that we know now, one can never be sure with these kinds of courts, unusual passage of time and deaths and alliances and all that-that they would serve her if she helped them drive out a shape-shifting green snake-a witch, I think-from nearby their homes.

"The snake-witch had killed a visiting star's daughter, and they were afraid that the star would gather up an army and wage war against them unless they took it upon themselves to avenge his daughter. They died before their terms of service to the fairy queen were all finished (they had promised too long a time, I think) and so the bargain passed down for a few generations."

"That's beastly," said Lucy rather quietly, feeling sorry for the fauns.

"Oh, it's not so bad," Tumnus assured her. "Quite a few of the fauns like it here, they enjoy the dancing and the festivities, and we are not badly treated-more like high servants than slaves. It is the young Narnian prince who suffers, not us."

"Do _you_ like it here?" she asked flat-out.

"Yes and no." Tumnus smiled wistfully. "There are some lovely things about it, but other times I think I should like to be free, to make up my own mind. You see, while I enjoy the court, I don't much fancy the queen's manners and way of handling things."

"Like with Edmund?" said Lucy.

He nodded. "Exactly; like with Edmund."

"Now, I do have some good news for you, if you would like it hear it." Tumnus offered with a half-smile.

"Good news?"

"Regarding your sister."

"Something about Susan?" She wondered what he was getting at.

"There is a little fairy-child, perhaps you've seen her sitting around watching everyone dance, she's been playing with a little wand."

"Oh, yes," Lucy smiled thinking of one of the few likable fairies she'd seen in her short time there. "Gael, right?"

"Three strokes of that wand would make your sister beautiful again, as lovely as she ever was."

"It..." Lucy found her voice faltering with surprise. "..it would?" While it was not something that would help Edmund in the least, she knew it would make her sister happy again, not to have to hide her face anymore.

Tumnus put a finger to his lips; Lucy watched as the little reddish-gold hairs on them curved along with the bend in his knuckle. "You didn't hear it from me."

Lucy nodded and crept away, her cloak refastened (for thankfully the clasp was not actually broken) and her invisible head held high. She would get the wand for her sister, and then she would see to it that Edmund got home in one piece. Truly, she wished she could do more; but she was at a loss for other ideas.

Back in the ballroom, Edmund had fainted onto the couch and the fairy queen's favored ladies were fanning him with dark leaves that had a velvety texture about them. Lucy clenched her jaw, full of anger at their uncaring actions; she knew perfectly well that they were not trying to revive him because they liked him but only so that he might get up and dance some more. In her eyes-and in the eyes of any feeling human being-they might as well have been signing the prince's death-warrant. For that, she despised them.

Then Lucy saw little Gael clutching the wand for amusement or comfort, holding it close to her tiny chest, looking anxious over the fainting prince and utterly distracted by her own childish playfulness by turn.

That gave her an idea.

If she attempted to run up to the fairy-child and snatch the wand away, a ruckus would be started; the girl would likely weep openly, drawing unwanted attention to them both. But if she could be distracted...if Lucy could use something simple and bright to lure Gael away from even caring a fig for the wand, then it would be grab-as-grab can, no harm done.

She knew she didn't have much to offer the little girl; no candy or toys, and even if she'd had those things, Gael had been spoiled by the court and would have thought she had seen much nicer treats.

Suddenly it came to her: the crackernuts. The shimmering silver crackernuts! Most of her proof would have to be sacrificed. Not all of it, though, for she quickly bound two of them in the handkerchief Master Tumnus had loaned her, tucking it away to save for later-Peter would believe her story yet!

Whistling softly to get the little fairy-girl's attention, Lucy tossed a silver crackernut so that it bounced a little ways off.

Sitting up a little straighter, Gael's eyes widened and she stared curiously after the bouncing nut.

Cooing lightly, Lucy tossed out three more, making them bounce further away than the last one had.

No one else seemed to notice the nuts, but Gael was captivated now. Standing up and smoothing out her fine lavender ball-gown, she started taking a few uncertain steps closer to the crackernuts.

She still had the wand in her hand, Lucy noticed, wondering if her plan was perhaps not working out as well as she had hoped. One last try; one final toss, the last of the unbound crackernuts rolling passed the little fairy's shinning eyes.

"Ooh!" said Gael, her sweet pudgy fingers slowly uncurling from around the slim wand.

Lucy took a step forward just as the wand fell to the floor with a faint, _ping_. Holding her breath, she bent down, picked it up, and hid it under her invisibility cloak. She paused for a moment to see if Gael would react to her plaything being taken away, but she was too busy amusing herself with the little silver nuts, giggling merrily, no harm done.

Breathing a sigh of relief now, Lucy turned to look for Edmund again and found him getting ready to leave, blood pouring from his feet, sweat-beads so intense they almost seemed to have _colour_ in them dripping from his face, as he wobbled over to Master Tumnus who brought Phillip out to him.

Hopping on Phillip behind the shivering younger Narnian prince, Lucy reached under her cloak to be certain that, right beside the wand she had taken for her sister's sake, the handkerchief with the two crackernuts she'd been able to spare was tightly secured-she would _not_ lose them this time. Edmund would have to fight to take them from her-fight harder than he'd ever fought in his life-and clearly he hadn't the strength for that.

On the way back to Cair Paravel, Phillip let out a startled whinny, and Edmund, in spite of his shaking self and weariness, managed to figure out that the source of the gelding's hubbub was a tree that had fallen down, blocking their path. He could distantly recall another path that would take them back to the castle, but this one was over a lake with a narrow dark-stone bridge that happened to have a few thick cracks in it, and as the horse couldn't help getting his hoof caught at least once, he shook his leg to get it out.

The sudden jolt almost threw Edmund to the stone-ground, but Lucy reached out and saved him just as she had before, not thinking much of it besides getting him back to his sick chamber in one piece. That is, she didn't think much of it until she heard a _plop_ in the water below them.

Instantly aware of her loss, Lucy felt for the wand, feeling that it was still there, relieved for one split-second before she felt that the handkerchief with the crackernuts was not. Edmund hadn't had to take them from her, not this time, the lake did it for him.

She almost began to cry, but then she remembered something and cheered up a bit. Maybe after she used the wand to make Susan her old pretty self again, she could show it to Peter as proof. Surely he couldn't scoff at a real-as-corn fairy-wand? Hope burned in her again so that she clung to Edmund's waist, holding him in place so that he didn't end up at the bottom of the lake with the crackernuts, with a more confident grip.

At Cair Paravel, it was nearly dawn when Edmund fell into his bed, so distraught and sore that he wasn't even able to pull the covers over himself. Without thinking, Lucy did it for him. Confused, though he did know in the back of his mind it was her, he kicked them off again. He shivered violently, but he didn't seem to actually want the blankets and sheets.

Telling herself in little murmured whispers that soon it would all be over, that soon Peter would know and would be able to do something about this unwarranted 'deal' Edmund had made with the fairy-queen, she hustled down the corridor to her sister's chamber, the cloak thrown over her left arm, slowly turning back into a ribbon as the first rays of morning light fell through the slatted windows onto it, the wand in her right hand.

It wasn't until she had reached the double-doors of Susan's chamber that Lucy began to wonder if part of the reason Edmund was so secretive about his nightly dancing was because he was embarrassed to admit he was doing it for his brother's sake. But then, that didn't fully sound like him. Surely he was wise enough to know that a little embarrassment wasn't quite so bad as death? He couldn't really _want_ to die, could he?

No use thinking of that now; she crept in through the right-side door and approached Susan, who had gotten into a rather ridiculous habit of sleeping with her hands in front of her face.

Oh, Susan, Lucy couldn't help thinking, you really almost do make it worse than it truly is, don't you?

Lucy half-smiled and shook her head as she quickly gave her sister three light taps with the wand. It felt feather-light, little more than a tickle, and Susan didn't stir or move her hands. With each stroke of the wand, Lucy felt the little fairy-object growing slimmer in her hands; by the last stroke, it was paper-thin, lifting her hand to try and save it from blowing away, it disintegrated into stardust-like ash, tumbling onto the floor and disappearing into the carpet. Susan might have been back to normal, if she ever moved her hands away from her face and let anyone see for themselves, but the proof Lucy had set her heart so intently on was for ever gone. Her heart broke and she dashed off, racing back to Edmund's sick chamber. Peter would come in to see him, and proof or no proof, she had to try again-she had to tell him _something_.

"He can't even drink water," Peter told Lucy through his held-back tears and blood-shot eyes. "The servants have to put ice-cubes into his mouth, and he's barely strong enough even for that."

"Peter, he-" tried Lucy, "-I mean, I-"

"Your Highness?" a broken-looking manservant approached Peter nervously. "The physician was called in again; he says...he says...he says that Prince Edmund might not live to see the afternoon, if there's anything you need to say to him, you should say it now."

"I have to go talk to him, Lu, I'll see you later." Peter told her, walking into the sick chamber looking torn and grave, very like an aged king who has lost a war, leaving his country in shambles.

"Peter, you don't understand, he-" Lucy's voice died off; he'd never believe her, and his grief made it impossible for her to keep pressing on about it. He would never listen to fairy-stories about his brother dancing all night until he was worn down to nothing, he would never hear of a bargain made-apparently-over his own self, but he might let her stick by him and see Edmund if she kept quiet a little longer. "-he wanted to see me, too, I think."

Peter was smart enough to know that that wasn't what she had really meant to say, but he let it go. He understood, he was going to miss him, too.

"Stop...making...all this...fuss..." Edmund whisper-croaked slowly to a few flighty, whimpering servants at his bedside. "...I'm...not...oh bother it all!" He sunk his head back down into the pillows and groaned, lightly spitting up a thinly sucked ice-cube.

"Ed," Peter's tears freed themselves now.

"What?" Edmund moaned slowly, slurring nearly every single word. "What...do you...want?"

"Ed, I-"

"Everybody out!" said Edmund, gathering up whatever strength he could muster in his voice.

"Edmund!" Peter protested.

"Please, Pete, just go."

His brother looked so hollow-eyed and pale, so thin and fragile, that to refuse any request on his part felt like beating a lame puppy; Peter could only press his lips together and leave.

Lucy turned to leave, too, trailing behind the startled servants, when Edmund gave her a funny look-an intense stare-and hoarsely grunted, "Not you, Princess. You stay. Come here."

If he was well, she would have been rather put-out by his bossiness, but as it was, she was touched and surprised that he was calling her to him, so she obeyed, even mustering up the formalness to curtsey at the bedside in spite of everything.

"Give me your hand." Edmund ordered feebly.

She hesitated, blinking in confusion.

"Lucy...just do it, all...right?"

Gulping, though she didn't know why, Lucy stretched out her hand to him.

Edmund took something out from under his pillow and pressed it into her palm. "For the good of Narnia," he murmured.

Lucy glanced down at the object in her hand: a dagger in a copper-sheath. "What?"

"Lucy, promise me something," Edmund breathed shallowly, trying to keep his hearable tone constant. "If I go-I mean, if I die-I want you to stay in this court, I want you to have a place at Cair Paravel, do you understand?"

Lucy shook her head; she hadn't the faintest idea what he was getting at.

"Make sure my brother marries your sister," with much struggling, the corners of Edmund's mouth turned up just a little bit. "I know he likes her; and if they marry, she becomes the future co-ruler of Narnia, meaning you find yourself in a permanent position in the queen's household, you never have to leave Narnia if you don't wish it."

Tears pricked her eyes; clearly he had put much thought into this. Here Edmund had been dying, and-probably for a while, too-he had been thinking about securing a place for _her_? Because he knew she loved Narnia? Her heart was breaking again.

"Leave me now," he said shortly, as if he had not just been speaking of such a thoughtful, tender subject to her. "I want to rest."


	13. One Last Try

After Edmund sent him away, Peter wasn't sure what to do with himself. There wasn't much he could focus on with the thought that his brother was lying on his deathbed in another room bouncing around in his mind. It was strange, though, really, coming to this point; it seemed like Edmund had been dying for so long that he would just keep on dying and wouldn't actually, well, die. But a nagging numbness tugged at his good-sense telling him that wasn't so, that it was almost over for Ed, for his dear brother.

"It can't be over," he murmured to himself shakily. "It can't be." Edmund wasn't supposed to die; he wasn't even supposed to be sick. This had been going on for such a long time, but it wasn't until just then that it started to feel like a bad dream. A nightmare he was desperate to wake up from.

Without thinking about it, Peter suddenly realized that he had been walking towards Susan's chamber. He hadn't even thought her name in his mind and already he was at her doors. Somehow she understood him; she thought herself cruel at times, but he didn't see it that way. To him, she-while riddled with as much fault as any living human being is-was right. She wasn't harsh, just sensible and practical. It might be annoying sometimes, down right exasperating, but it was what he-and, he couldn't help thinking because of being a future king, Narnia-needed.

Is she even up yet? Peter wondered, gently rapping his knuckles on the door. "Susan?"

From inside there came no proper answer; however, he did-though a little indistinctly-hear a moan, and not being at his most relaxed state of mind as far as illnesses went that morning, crept in to see if she was all right. Horrific thoughts that she, too, might have worsened-since she was supposed to be sick herself-and that he could possibly lose both his brother and the lady he admired on the same day, slapped at him from the inside out.

His hands trembling a little bit, unwilling to listen to his mind telling them to steady, he pulled back the curtains on one of the windows and let in a bit of light. There she was, Princess Susan, soundly asleep, looking peaceful enough. Peter breathed a sigh of relief and chided himself for being so foolish; she was fine, _she_ would recover.

Her face was turned away from him and the light, one arm draped in front of it as she dozed. It occurred to him that he'd never actually _seen_ her since they were little children, and curiosity compelled the crown prince to come a little closer. Smiling tightly, he choked back a light laugh of amusement brought on because he could hear her snoring. One didn't often think of proud, high-born princesses as snoring, but this one obviously did and he found it rather charming.

The eldest princess of Ettinsmoor let out another groan and rolled a half-inch over in her sleep; her face was still covered, but part of her neck that had been hidden before was exposed now. Resting on her neck was a little white-gold pendant shaped like a Christmas Rose. Peter leaned over the bed and lifted it up just the slightest bit with his index finger; he thought he'd seen something like that before.

It was in the dinning hall, he recalled, on the neck of a plain noblewoman who had been trying to talk to him and...oh, dear Aslan, it was _her_! He wondered how he could have possibly been so stupid and thoughtless, how he could have not known.

"Oh, Susan, I'm so sorry." Peter mumbled apologetically even though she couldn't hear him. What an idiot he was! She was probably furious with him now. And why shouldn't she be? He'd led her on to believe they were friends and then had just ignored her without explanation. If only he had known...how could he not know her?

Susan was starting to wake up. She was under the impression that she was having a dream about Peter sitting at her bedside whispering something she couldn't quite make out to her. Part of her felt stupid for dreaming about him-dreaming about him when she was so furious about how he had treated her. But then her eyes were open and her hands were away from her face, and he didn't fade away in the morning light as a proper dream ought to, rather, he gazed at her as if _she_ were the dream.

"Do you find me very ugly?" Susan said softly, trying to sound distant and stern in spite of her faltering tone.

"No," said Peter, blinking in amazement at her question. The princess in front of him was beautiful; without a doubt the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen in his life.

Wordlessly, Susan turned her head and caught sight of her reflection in the mirror on the other side of the bed chamber. Her old face peered back at her, as pretty as it ever was, unchanged. While she wished she wasn't, wished to be pleased with her change of fate, she was disappointed; for a moment she'd thought Peter had found her beautiful in her ugly state and almost dared to admire him all the more so for it.

"I see." What else could she say to him, when he was just like any other man in the presence of an attractive girl, when she had hoped-if only for a passing moment-he was different?

"You're as beautiful now as you were last evening." Peter told her, placing one of his hands over hers.

His hand was warm; Susan felt herself blush, cursing herself inwardly for it. "You ignored me, wouldn't even give me the time of day-because you thought I was plain."

"Hang it all; that is only because I didn't know it was you, Susan, please see reason and forgive me." He felt her starting to pull her hands away from his grip and dared to tighten it just a little bit. "I'm not in love with your face, Princess Susan of Ettinsmoor, I'm in love with _you_."

Now _that_ was more important. "You...you _love_ me?"

"Yes." Peter's voice was a little more somber than she expected, but at least it was convincing.

"When did you know?" asked Susan, leaning her face a little closer to his now.

"Do you remember when we were little and I poked your cheek?" Peter chuckled.

"All right." Susan rolled her eyes, giving in. "Yes, I remember."

"That's when I knew."

"I kicked you in the shins!" Susan protested. "And you _cried_!"

Peter cracked a smug, half-smile. "Well, love hurts."

Susan smiled and their fingers intertwined.

"If I kiss you, are you going to kick me again?" he teased.

"I guess you'll have to wait and find out," she flirted with him.

Peter kissed her cheek, the same one he had poked as a toddler.

When he pulled away from her, a brow arched in a half-challenging manner, she pressed her lips against his just as his arms slipped around her waist.

"Ahem!" a voice coughed from the doorway.

They broke apart and turned around to see Lord Scrubb standing there, looking irritated, but thankfully unaccompanied by his prudish wife at the moment.

"Yes, Uncle?" Peter sighed, slowly snapping back into reality.

"Your brother," he began.

The world swam messily in front of his eyes, making everything in the chamber a blur-he was terrified that Lord Harold was going to say, "Your brother has died," and he couldn't help wondering how he could have possibly forgotten his sick brother so quickly. Was this what was going to become of him-of Narnia-when Edmund was gone? Just forgetfulness; just going on like nothing had ever happened, as if there had never even been a second prince? If a few joyful, sweet, tender moments could slip into the past without even the thought of his dying brother coming into his head, wasn't it all the more likely that once Edmund was truly gone he could be completely forgotten? It was horrid, but realistically sobering, to realize that there might come a day when-perhaps from sunrise to sunset-until dreams of the past come to do their haunting-that Peter wouldn't even remember his own brother. It was the way of life, but it was very painful to contemplate.

"Your brother has managed to sit up and drink a little water and soup," Lord Scrubb announced stiffly, probably caring deep down but making no attempt to show it, "he is not likely to fully recover, but he might live a day or so longer than we expected-more likely he will die in the evening instead of the afternoon."

Nodding briefly at his uncle, thanking him for the news, Peter turned to Susan again. "You haven't met my brother yet, have you?"

She shook her head.

"Are you well enough?"

Susan blushed again, trying to think of a way to tell him she had never actually been ill. At any rate she managed a nod and allowed him to take her hand and lead her into his brother's sick chamber.

Although Edmund had asked him to leave not even an hour ago, Peter was pretty sure he wouldn't mind a quick visit especially since this might be his only chance to introduce him to Susan, the woman he secretly-or maybe not so secretly, depending on how you looked at it-intended to marry if she'd have him.

When he saw her, his half-closed eyelids opened a little wider and-as soon as he was sure that it was Lucy's sister and not someone else-coughed hollowly in approval.

Neither knew what to say to the other; Susan was ashamed of pretending sick all this time when he was really was ill, for he did look particularly awful at that moment with paper-white skin and dark circles around his eyes, and he was weak, unsure of what to say to the surprisingly beautiful princess who stood like a marble statue in the room, close by his brother's side, wringing her hands uncomfortably from time to time.

They parted, liking each other well enough, but having said precious little to one another. At least, Susan thought she understood why Lucy was so determined to save him a little better now; he was a piteous boy, and she did wish something could be done for him.

That night, Peter thought he would like to dismiss the servants from the sick chamber and stay himself with his brother for the night, seeing as the frail boy, looking far younger than he actually was by the time twilight turned the sky from pale blue to pinkish-purple, was little more than a tiny flame about to burn out at any given second. Lucy, however, insisted that Peter let her try to sit up with him again.

When he tried to refuse her, saying it was nearly over and to please not make it any worse than it already was, she threatened to take the matter to King Frank himself.

"Don't be silly, Lucy." Susan, who had been sitting at Peter's right side, said softly. "Let the crown prince stay with his brother tonight; there's nothing you can do."

Of course, they didn't really expect her to march into the throne-room and speak to King Frank, but that's exactly what she ended up doing, and she never regretted it.

"Ah, Princess Lucy of Ettinsmoor, what an honour." The king greeted her with official warmness. "What can I do for you?"

"I want to sit up with Ed-I mean, the sick prince-again tonight."

"Eh, what's that?" King Frank-bless him-was caught completely unaware. " _Again_ , you say? You've sat up with him before?"

She curtsied. "For two nights, your Majesty."

"Well," he laughed uncertainly out of shock, "we ought to have given you a peck of _gold_ for your bravery."

Lucy shook her head. "I only want to help him, please let me try."

"Dear one," King Frank spread out his palms to her kindly. "You _have_ tried. Goodness child, you've told me some if it yourself just now."

"One more night," Lucy pleaded with him. "Just give me one more night and I promise I'll make it all stop-the bleeding feet, the suffering, everything-just one more night, please." She wasn't sure _how_ she was going to rescue Edmund from the fairy-queen, only that she mustn't wait any longer to go about it.

"If you can save him, dear Princess," sighed King Frank hopelessly, "you can have him."

 _Have him?_ Thought Lucy, wondering what the king meant by his words and then quickly dismissing it, bobbling another curtsey to King Frank as she swept out of the room.

This was it, this was the night she had to be no longer Princess Lucy of Ettinsmoor, but rather, Lucy: Heroine of Narnia. It was her or the fairy-queen this time, the prince must be freed, and Lucy wasn't going down without a fight.


	14. White Light

Lucy couldn't imagine how Edmund, in his current state where being able to drink a few sips of water and to hold down a drop of soup seemed like nothing short of a miracle, would possibly be able to rise and dress himself to go dancing. He might try; if she knew him at all, she knew he wouldn't back out on the bargain, that his will was nothing more than to keep his end, but she couldn't picture him lifting his head or dragging his feet so much as a step over the threshold without fainting from exhaustion. Simply put, it was impossible.

It made Lucy wonder, however, exactly what would happen if Edmund didn't show up at the fairy court that night. Would the queen come looking for him? Or would her reaction be less swift but twice as biting? If only she knew the whole story, more than just the snippets she'd picked up, then she felt almost certain she could solve this mystery. The seemingly easiest way would have been for Edmund himself to tell her; but she knew better than to hope for that. She'd lost that chance. He would say nothing; she had to rescue him without his help-maybe even without his consent.

This time she didn't even bother with the decoy-dress, already wearing the doublet and tights as she strolled into the room unescorted (except for Peter, who looked at her with a resigned sense of frustration directed at her unending persistence, and shook his head as he vanished down the corridor). Edmund knew the truth, he knew that he went to the fairy court every night, and he knew perfectly well that Lucy was going to follow him. No amount of lies and coughs on his part was going to hinder her from going after him. She even toyed with the idea of not wearing the invisibility cloak that night, since he would expect her to follow him anyway, but she decided it wouldn't be the wisest course. She needed as much protection as she could get, even if it was just a way to make herself unseen. On a thin, dark-brown, braided leather belt strapped haphazardly around the middle of the doublet, Lucy had fastened the dagger Edmund had given her earlier. She wasn't sure of what its real significance was, but she gathered that it was important and wanted to keep it near her person that night.

The strokes of midnight began to ring and Edmund stood from his bed shakily, nearly falling flat on his thin, sweat-encased face. Hastily he inhaled deeply, fighting back a raspy cough, as he clutched the side of the bedpost.

His lips trembled. "Lion give me strength," he muttered, pulling himself up with the piteous motion of a solider wounded in a battle, desperate to press on no matter what.

Anxiously, the ribbon a cloak again-clasped around her invisible shoulders, Lucy watched the prince stumble over to his wardrobe, rummaging for his clothes. As she had on the previous two nights, she looked away, but her concern made her shift her gaze back a little too quickly, and she happened to see him without a shirt on. His back was as ghostly white as his frail, thin-cheeked face, a sharp contrast to his dark hair, and she noticed that-even in the darkness-she could almost see his ribs on one side.

Once he was dressed, though she noticed he had forgotten his boots and was trailing a thin stream of blood along the corridor from the soles of his feet, he started for the stables. It occurred to her just then that when she had seen his bloody feet before, it had never been in the corridor. It had been in the stirrups, in the ballroom at the fairy court, even in his bed, but never in the corridor. Lucy had never thought of it before, but now she wondered if he had, in spite of his delirium, actually been _trying_ not to get blood on the floor in the corridor so no one would know of his leaving. Was Prince Edmund too sick to even bother with such attempts now?

Phillip was horrified when he saw Edmund standing before him, leaning clumsily on the wood of the stall-door, begging his horse to carry him off.

"I will not take you, go back to bed." The gelding tried, feeling that he must hold his ground.

Edmund's glassy eyes shifted, as they had on the first night, to Susan's Isbjorn.

"No, your Highness, you wont guilt me into it again!" Phillip's accent became peppered with angry neighs.

"Phillip," coughed Edmund; his head felt so heavy, like trying to hold up a brick wall. "If you care about me at all, you'll do as I tell you."

"But-"

"No buts, horsey." said Edmund rather tartly.

Phillip tossed back his mane and snorted, "My _name_ is Phillip!" as if the young prince didn't already know perfectly well what it was.

"Whatever," he groaned, rubbing his temples. "I haven't got all night, either you'll carry me, or you won't and I steal Princess Susan's horse."

The gelding gave in. "Fine, climb on my back."

"You're the best, Phillip." Edmund wheezed hollowly into his left palm.

The horse let out a snort and tossed his proud mane back again, clearly insulted, worried, and frustrated all at once.

The ride to the fairy-court was silent with no excitement save for when Phillip slowly lost his ability to talk and think clearly, and when Edmund nearly fell off about half a dozen times, needing Lucy to pull him up by collar of the billowy shift he wore under his royal-blue tunic so that he didn't tumble to the ground.

He knew she was there, but he didn't speak to her, and she, in turn, didn't say a word to him. On Prince Edmund's end it was a mixture of illness, fear, and pride that kept him quiet; for Lucy, it was her head whirling with thoughts and plans, trying to think of a way to save him. After all, she had promised King Frank that she would put an end to it all that very night-this was her last chance. Edmund's last chance, too; he'd never survive another night like this; goodness knew he might not survive the one they were currently pushing their way through.

The only thing she could think to do was gather up crackernuts again. Proof wasn't really what she needed now, but Lucy didn't think snapping some more silver nuts down from the trees and keeping a handful of them on her person with the dagger could hurt. She might need them for something; they had proven handy for getting the wand away from the little fairy girl the night before, hadn't they?

Once they were at the fairy-court, Tumnus helped Edmund down whispering, "She's followed you again, hasn't she?"

Edmund winced. "Of course she has."

Lucy knew they were talking about her and was unsure if that was a good thing, a bad thing, or simply a meaningless comment. They both knew, she knew they both knew, it very likely didn't matter. It wouldn't help her save him, Tumnus could do nothing, Peter was too far away-back at Cair Paravel-and at any rate didn't believe her still, so she had to do this one on her own.

"Her Majesty is in a rather grumpy mood tonight," Master Tumnus warned Prince Edmund shortly in a sharp-though not unkind-whisper. "She had a headache this morning, the crown she wanted to wear for a certain event was improperly polished by the servant left in charge, and she's cross because the food at tonight's ball is not quite to her liking."

"Great," muttered Edmund sarcastically, "that's just what I need."

"I say, your Highness, can you dance tonight?"

"I have to, whether or not I can."

"But, Prince Edmund, your feet..."

"They're bleeding, I know." he groaned snappishly.

"Yes, but they're..." Tumnus grimaced and swallowed hard before going on. "...very _white_ under all that blood, and you're standing on them... _wrong_..."

Lucy glanced down and wanted to cry when she saw it for herself. The prince might have been white all over; but the discolouring in his feet was no less the obvious for it. Up until that point she had assumed he was walking with the sides of his feet pushed out like that because he was trying to loosen up the pain a bit; now she saw it was because he _couldn't_ walk any other way. Something worse than just bleeding was happening to his feet.

"Can you feel your heels or toes at all?" asked Master Tumnus.

Edmund closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall. "No,"

"What are you going to do?" Tumnus gently gripped the boy's shoulders and helped him up from the wall before he slid down it.

"Same thing I do every night;" Edmund whispered as he fought back a round of tears, "give me some wine."

"You shouldn't drink when you're this ill..."

"Are you my friend or my mother? Just give me a glass and take me into the ballroom before the queen has a fit, understand?"

Tumnus bowed, biting his lower lip to hold back all the things he really wanted to say. "Yes, your Highness."

Edmund swallowed the wine quickly, then, moments later, his stomach heaved, his mouth opened, and there was a reddish-purple stain on the floor right beside his nearly-invalid feet.

Figures he'd throw it up after all that, Lucy thought a little harshly, though she felt more pity than anything else. Most of her anger was saved up for the fairy queen.

While Edmund danced with the fairies, Lucy started looking around for Gael again; she thought perhaps the little fairy-girl would have something like the wand that had made Susan pretty again, maybe something that could help Edmund this time.

"Are you there, Lucy of Ettinsmoor?" a voice whispered, quietly searching the room for her.

Lucy turned around; a few inches away, Tumnus was standing very still, listening for her presence, pretending to be intent on serving some sort of crab-puff on a silver tray to the fairy queen's ladies as they passed by.

"How are you, Master Tumnus?" she whispered to the faun when she'd crept close enough not to be over-heard by anyone else.

"Well, thank you, but Prince Edmund is weaker than ever."

"I know, I have to help him." said Lucy.

"Earlier this evening, one of the queen's favored ladies gave Gael a silver apple with a golden core and steam, from which hangs the leaf of a sparking herb." He tapped his goat feet on the floor to pretend he was murmuring along with the music as a sort of faun-humming. "Take it from her and give it to Edmund, it will heal him."

"He can't keep anything down." Lucy couldn't help protesting. In her head she was already trying to figure out if he meant the herb or the apple.

"Then you had better hurry," the faun warned her, not unkindly. "Be comforted; it will only take three bites."

The apple, it definitely had to be the apple. There wasn't enough of the herb to get three bites out of it. Either way, she'd get those bites to him, by hook or by crook.

When Lucy finally found Gael in the corner rolling the silver apple around as if it were just any silly little plaything of no real importance other than to amuse her for a few moments, she rolled the crackernuts out as she had the night before, hoping it would work again. Thankfully it did, and she soon had the shinny fruit tucked under her invisibility cloak for safe-keeping.

"He's not moving, your Grace." Someone reported to the queen in a rather loud voice.

Lucy whipped her head around and saw Edmund lying unconscious on the floor, not having even been able to make it to the couch before he passed out.

"Fan him," the queen ordered sulkily, her beautiful, full lips pouted in a sign of displeasure at the interruption. "He will rise."

And fan him they did, for nearly half-an-hour, but he didn't stir. His feet were dripping with sweat and blood, his face a moist mess cut-up and worn-out, he laid as limp as if he were a corpse.

"Edmund!" Lucy whispered, only because she dared not shout and give herself away.

Pushing her unseen way through several confused fairy-ladies in silken gowns with gold and silver threads running through them, Lucy grabbed onto one of Edmund's hands and squeezed it as tightly as she could possibly risk. _Please wake up, don't go, not now!_

Lucy could feel a distant pulse fighting to keep pumping, to keep living, to keep going on.

She knew that the fairies would do nothing more than fan him, very likely letting him die in the process while the fairy-queen's glower of disappointment she would do nothing about hovered over them. Lucy was instantly filled with a hatred for the unfeeling queen so intense that she decided to risk it all, snatching poor Edmund out right from under their royal noses. Grabbing onto his arms, she began dragging the dying prince away from the ballroom, lifting the weak, fragile, unresisting body up inch by inch as she gained a better grip and more bravery with each step.

"Hey!" a dim-witted fairy-lady exclaimed first, clearly confused. "He's drifting away-like a current."

"Don't be stupid!" the queen rose angrily from her throne and glided over to where Lucy was dragging the prince away, grabbing the girl by her invisible cloak and ripping part of if off.

At first, Lucy was stunned-a bit impressed, even-thinking that the queen had somehow seen her, and that that was how she had known it was not some unseen force dragging the prince of Narnia away, but a little princess from Ettinsmoor, determined to save her friend. Actually, the queen had not _seen_ her at all, but fairies have other senses-just as they have other emotions-ones that humans cannot have or understand, and these senses, stronger than mere sight, finally alerted her to Lucy's presence at the court.

Slowly, her eyes drifted from the flashing, angry face of the queen to the floor where the strip of her cloak that was torn off had become a straggly looking ribbon scrap, vaguely resembling the beautiful material it had once been. Everyone could see her now, the cloak was ruined, offering no more protection than any other ripped garment could.

"Who are you?" The fairy queen spoke each world with an emotionless air of importance, as if to warn the princess she was treading on dangerous ground.

"I am Lucy," she replied, not without forced politeness.

"What are you doing in my court?"

For a moment, Lucy was afraid, she almost cowered, nearly broke down into pleas for mercy, then it all flooded back to her: everything this queen had put Edmund through. It was this very queen who made him dance each night, never caring that it was slowly killing him; she who compelled him to come back even when he was his weakest, holding some sort of unyielding power over him. This was not a person that deserved fear, nor awe, nor any other wasted emotions. This queen, this fairy, deserved nothing more than the cold hard truth, and Lucy was no longer afraid to give it.

"I've come to take Edmund away." Lucy told her boldly. "Away from this court for ever and ever; you will not make him come here ever again."

"Is that so?" The queen seemed amused, although because fairies have unique facial expressions, partial to their own race, Lucy couldn't be sure.

"Yes," said Lucy.

"Do you know, foolish human girl, why he comes here every night?" asked the fairy queen, stepping forward, her long fingers curled around her scepter.

"Because he made a bargain with you to save his elder brother's life when he was nine years old." Lucy whispered in a far-off tone as if she were trying to piece the puzzle that was Edmund's story together into one whole picture while she said it.

"Has he told you this himself?"

Lucy shook her head. "No, he hasn't." At least, not all of it.

One of the queen's golden curls gleamed stiffly where it clung near to her other-worldly cheek, looking-to Lucy-rather like a coiled gold-coloured snake ready to spring.

For a moment both human girl and fairy-queen stood and stared at each other, each unrelenting, when suddenly the fairy's eyes flashed the colour of lightning and she reached out to grab the girl by her hair.

Lucy was too quick, somehow guessing what the queen meant to do before she did it, jumping out of the way. As the fairy-queen lunged for her again, this time aiming at her arm, Lucy pulled the dagger out of the copper sheath to defend herself with.

A fight ensued; queen defending her rights; Princess of Ettinsmoor, heroine of Narnia, protecting the prince and her own skin as well. The fairy queen was both larger and stronger than the only thirteen-year-old Lucy was, and probably had the upper hand in the fight. Surely she would have won right away if her ladies had thought to help her-but they were too enthralled and goose-eyed at the moment to do much of anything, eager to see how things turned out, though they clearly believed their queen was going to win anyhow.

Actually, she would have won a few moments after the-for the lack of a better word-scuffle began, if Lucy had not happened to free herself for a moment, stagger upwards, and take four steps back without looking behind before the queen could make another grab at her.

For during those steps, the princess heard something crunch under her feet. That something was none other than one of the crackernuts she had rolled out to Gael earlier. In light of the fight, the shinny little objects had been abandoned in favor of staring in horror and quietly crying by turn.

The important thing, however, is not that Gael forgot at least one of the crackernuts, it is that when Lucy stepped on it, accidentally placing the heel of her foot on its weakest point, she caused a large crack to cut right through the silver. This was quite surprising, for she had believed them to be solid and not broken by something as simple as clumsy footing, but more odd still was that she could see a little stream of what looked like white-light peeping out from the sleek crack.

When the queen came at her again, instead of sticking her dagger out at the nearest part of the fairy's body, she plummeted down to the floor, shoving the blade as deeply into the crack in the silver nut as it would go. The force split the crackernut in two, and suddenly the ballroom was bathed in a light as pure as rain.

From the open crackernut there flew out a swarm of fire-flies unlike any Lucy had ever seen before, small and snow-coloured, and perfectly bright. Amongst them there were a flock of black-birds rather like ravens with iron beaks, snapping angrily.

The queen hissed and bayed in horror, leaping away from the birds and fire-flies, placing her weight every time she stepped or landed, on the stem of her scepter so as to save her energy and to keep her always one step away from the snapping beaks.

"Lucy," a voice murmured; Edmund's eyes were opening, and he was grabbing onto the ends of her doublet to pull himself up.

"Edmund!"

"Tumnus?" Edmund murmured, noticing the faun was near-by, having been particularly anxious about Lucy though not daring to jump in and help her, lest the queen's rage turn on him.

"Your highness, I-" he stammered, ashamed for behaving a coward.

"A sword, Master Tumnus, hand me a sword." croaked Edmund, peering out from between his eyelashes.

"You're too weak to lift one!"

" _Trust_ me!"

His hands shaking, the faun handed the prince the lightest sword he could grab on such short notice.

Using all his remaining strength to lift the blade up by its glittering jewel-encrusted hilt, Edmund wielded it so that when the queen-still fleeing the ravens-came near enough, it sliced her scepter in half; she came crashing down onto the floor and the birds cawed wildly as they flew at her.

Groaning, Edmund fell backwards into Lucy's now out-stretched arms, murmuring, "Run, you idiot."

Ignoring the fact that he had just called her an idiot, she pulled him up onto Phillip's back (either Tumnus or another confused faun had brought him out to them) and dug her heels into the horse's sides, urging him to carry them away as quickly as possible.


	15. Fake Ivy & Real Truth

He must have known, even when it was the most muddled and horrifically convincing, he must have known that it wasn't real. It did _feel_ real enough, however, and that in itself was more than a little frightening.

Although the moment where Edmund had sliced the fairy queen's scepter in two was over-not long over by any stretch of the imagination, but over all the same-in the past, behind his closed eyes, within the rocking motion under his shaking body, he could still see and almost _feel_ it happening all over again.

There was Lucy with the dagger he had given her; there was the crackernut split wide-open; there was the queen in all her beautiful rage, fighting back a flock of black-birds, sickened by their beaks. And there was Tumnus, telling him he wasn't strong enough to hold a sword, still obeying him all the same anyway. Then the sickening moment, like a jolt only he himself could feel, when blade met queen's stick.

After he'd done it, he'd called Lucy an idiot and told her to run, which she-taking him with her on Phillip's back-did. But in his mind, it was different. It wasn't like that at all. In fact, what happened in his mind was so different, that it barely even involved Lucy. If she was there, in the hallucination's reenactment of 'what happened that night at the fairy court', he didn't notice. The fairy queen herself played only a small role, if that makes one feel any better about what could almost seem like ingratitude on Edmund's part if he wasn't so ill.

When the scepter split, the faux-ivy of emeralds and amethysts that had clung to it timelessly, uncoiled itself from around the peacock's feather and slithered onto the floor like it was alive and growing. Slowly it started climbing-almost like real ivy, but far quicker-up Edmund's legs, wrapping itself around his body. The emeralds cut like knives, and as for the amethysts, they felt like poison being injected in his skin. Most of all, it got the best grip on his feet and ankles. It made the rest of his body feel feverish and bruised, but he could barely endure the pain it caused his feet. As the ivy wrapped around there, he felt his pulse weaken, his heart skipping beat after beat before it would start up again. The ivy was up to his neck now, and while it didn't grab quite the hold there it had on his feet, it choked him; he could scarcely breathe.

Suddenly he was soaking wet. He might have assumed it was sweat, but it didn't feel like sweat, it felt more like an out-right dunking-as if he had been tossed into a pool of water. Which, considering he was in the middle of a ballroom having the life choked out of him by fake-ivy (he was, wasn't he?), seemed a little out of place.

What had actually happened was that, because the large fallen tree was still blocking the first path leading back to Cair Paravel, Lucy had been left with no choice but to take the same one Edmund had taken before, over the dark-stone bridge. Unfortunately for her, a frightened girl desperate to get back to the castle, a distant storm was starting up, and though there was no rain yet, there was a bit of lightning that turned the black sky purple for a full second followed by loud thunder.

The thunder spooked Phillip because he was currently almost all non-talking, witless horse, and not-at the time-a very brave one for that matter. Letting out a neigh of distress, the gelding reared wildly.

If it had been Edmund directing his horse, even in a weakened state, this would have been a fairly mild disaster. The young prince knew his horse, dumb or talking, happy or afraid, he knew him; and he would have been able to steady the creature quickly enough to avoid any real danger. Lucy, while she adored Phillip, knew little more than how to keep her seat on him as she would on any other horse, and could do nothing about herself-and Edmund-being plunged into the lake below.

As she kicked with her feet, keeping her eyes open and her mouth shut, fighting back her longing to cry out, she could feel Edmund slipping from her arms, unable to hold himself up. Taking a deep breath, she dove under again. The water was freezing, but she endured it for his sake, so that she might get a good hold on his slim waist. She held him above the surprisingly choppy ripples; yet he didn't seem to be doing much breathing.

She knew what she had to do. She still had the apple, safely secured to her side, and he needed to be brought to shore. Once there, she'd find a way to make him take the three bites and get well again; there was no use hoping for anything else. Lucy knew she was still on her own. Tumnus, dear Master Tumnus, she didn't know where he was-only hoping he was quite all right. Peter and Susan, back at Cair, were all but useless to her now; they couldn't do anything. King Frank was just the same. This was still her moment; this was still her duty; she had followed him to save him, and save him she would.

The shore was a mix of faded grass and yellow-white sand. When Lucy dragged the tired body of the younger prince of Narnia to it, he rested motionlessly on his side, his mouth open-gasping for air he couldn't quite take in. The sand was fine and went up his nostrils-if he hadn't been so out of it, it would have made him sneeze.

Glad that she had kept it after using it to blast the crackernut open, Lucy cut into the silver apple with her dagger and held one of the smaller pieces up to Edmund's aching lips.

Nothing happened; he made no attempt to bite the magic fruit, not seeming to know where he was or what she was doing. But, as luck would have it, the sweet smell burned up through his nose just as a single drip of the rich, flavorful juice from the apple landed on his lips and fell into his mouth.

It made him feel so good that he thought, though he didn't think much else, that he simply had to have a bite of whatever it was. His lips quivered and, as Lucy was holding the fruit very near to them, he was able to take a little bite.

"Ooh," he groaned in an almost childlike manner, wanting more.

She held the apple piece closer still, praying he would be strong enough to take it. When it became clear that he wasn't, she used her other hand to hold his head up, helping him. This bite was a little bigger and he seemed to be coming back to himself now.

"Where am I?" murmured Edmund, awakening and propping himself up on his elbow.

"Oh, Edmund!" Lucy couldn't help crying out in relief as he took his final bite, a bit of colour coming back to his pale face.

He closed his eyes and sighed deeply, savoring the taste of magic apple on his tongue as it healed him. When he opened them again, so lucid and calm, that Lucy almost felt she was looking at someone else entirely, he was very different. The prince was still far too skinny, his clothes fairly engulfing him, but his complexion was set right and his lips no longer constantly curled up into a grimace-sneer of pain.

So great was the transformation, that Lucy was suddenly stricken with a measure of shyness in spite of everything they'd been through together. It was just that she had never seen him well before, and she had not expected him to-at least to her taste-be rather a handsome young man. With a little more meat on his bones, he would probably be one of the best-looking noblemen she'd ever seen in her whole life. All along he'd appeared to be little more than a frightened boy, only a bit older than herself, now he really did look like a crown prince's brother. Somehow she had not been fully prepared for that.

"Lucy," said Edmund, recognizing her at last, "it's good to see you."

Her heart fluttered when he said that and she smiled, extending her hand to help him up. "Are you... _better_...now?"

"Yes, thank you." said Edmund very politely, looking at her with a strange sense of concern she had not seen on his face before. "Why are you all wet?"

"You're wet, too, Ed-I mean, your Highness." Lucy found herself stammering, blinking at him as he rose before her, a good half-foot taller now that he was no longer hunched over from his illness.

"Edmund, if you please, none of this 'Highness' stuff-not now." he laughed; a very different sort of laugh than he had used most of the time she'd known him. Actually, it was very similar to the first laugh or so she had ever heard from him, the kind she liked.

"Your feet..." Lucy gestured downwards anxiously.

"They're better now, I think." said Edmund, trying to get used to the feeling of having proper, working feet that did not bleed again-it had been a while.

"Good."

"Lions alive, Lu, is that all you've got to say?"

"What else do you want me to say?" she looked almost cross for a moment, frustrated with him.

"What about defending yourself for following me, or else shouting at me for calling you names?"

"Why should I do that?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "You ought to,"

"You mean, I've a right to?" Lucy said, agreeing-just the slightest bit-with this thought.

The prince pouted. "No, not a _right_ , but you ought to."

"Then I shan't." Lucy told him stubbornly.

"Well, you know I will have to go back tomorrow night, don't you? All the more so since I'm well again."

"No!" cried Lucy indignantly, appalled. "You wont! You're free, for ever."

Edmund smiled at her; she was such a sweet girl, for all her overly-advanced senses of right-and-wrong, honour, and friendship. She was brave, he had to hand that to her, but she was also very wrong.

"I've made a bargain-how much do you know about that?"

"A little," Lucy told him. "At least, I know it was something to do with Peter being ill before you...and the fairy queen taking advantage of the situation."

"She's been naughty," Edmund said diplomatically, "but so have many other fairies; they are not a race known for their kindness, not always. They aren't as they are in story-books, Lu."

"She could have killed you," Lucy interjected sort of quietly.

"I know."

"Did you think you had it sorted?"

"Never."

"Did you ever really know you were going to die?"

"Not at first," Edmund confessed as he took her arm and started leading her up the path that they would now have to walk if they wanted to get back to Cair Paravel. "After a while, though, by the time I was about ten or so, I knew."

"It must have been so awful for you."

He rolled his eyes. "No so awful as leaving Narnia without a good heir for King."

"You don't think you..." Lucy knew it wasn't her place to say this, but she did so want to know, and of course she hoped he would be gracious enough not to hold it against her. "...you would have been a good king?"

"Don't know," said Edmund distantly. "How can I? I've not been trained to be a king, Lucy, I was second-born, but Peter's supposed to be king. If he died, well, he couldn't be then, could he?"

"I'm so tired," Lucy yawned, suddenly unable to take another step. "Sorry."

I've been thoughtless, Edmund thought to himself, only thinking that _I_ can walk because my feet are better, and here the princess is about to give way.

"We'll rest a while, then, you needn't be sorry."

"Tell me, Edmund," Lucy sat down under a tree and closed her eyes part-way. "why didn't you ever tell him?"

"He would have thought me a fool."

"For trying to save his life?"

"Besides, it was my own problem."

"You had to go through it all alone for the whole time."

"Not the whole time."

"Master Tumnus, you mean?" Lucy guessed.

"I suppose," Edmund stammered with surprise, "but I didn't mean him-I meant you."

"Me?" Lucy was shocked. "I've only gone with you for three nights."

"Yes, and you were a perfect little tell-tale in the mornings," he laughed so she would know he wasn't being serious, "but I...some moments I was glad to know you were there...or rather, that I wasn't alone anymore."

"You never made me think..."

"Well," he scoffed, "I certainly didn't _want_ you there-it was dangerous. What if the fairy queen had gotten you, what would I have done with myself?"

"Are you still willing to tell me how this all happened?" Lucy dared to ask, reaching up and rubbing the sides of her upper arms.

"You're cold," Edmund noted, not actually meaning to change the subject.

"A little." she admitted.

"Here, lean closer to me," he instructed, slipping his arm around the middle of her back and pulling her close to him. "It'll be warmer like that. Do you think we could have a fire?"

"A fire?" Lucy had no objections to a nice, hot fire to warm her numb little fingers over, but her longing to hear his story was a little stronger than her desire to be comfortable, so she hesitated for a moment.

After he promised to explain his whole story once a good fire was lit, she let him go, and he got up and found some decent fire-wood. At first they had naught but useless little sparks, but soon, thanks to Edmund's hard blowing on them, they grew into a blazing little fire-neither too large nor too small, just the perfect size for the two of them.

For a moment, Edmund forgot himself and his promise, gazing at the sleepy-eyed, round, flushed, rosy face across from him, nearly orange from the firelight. She was really a very pretty girl; such a shame he had been too sick and distracted to truly notice this before.

Lucy coughed into her palm.

"Oh, right!" Edmund remembered his promise and cleared his throat. "When I was nine years old, Peter became frightfully ill, and many were convinced he was going to die. So one night, on my own, I took Phillip out and rode to the fairy-court to bargain with the queen.

"To some extent, I knew what I was doing, that she wasn't someone who gave and took lightly, but I was a child still, and I...I did not know quite so much as I thought I did."

Lucy blinked sympathetically.

"Anyway, she gave me a little diamond flask-I still have that flask, actually-filled with magic cordial, one drop of which could cure Peter. In exchange, I was to dance at her court each night with her ladies and courtiers-I promised her fifteen years. At first, it wasn't so bad, just a little difficult at times. I felt weaker; I knew I wasn't healthy, but when I wanted to give up, I just told myself that I was doing it for Peter, that this was saving his life, that fifteen years was not for ever. There really was a time, Lu, that I-honest to Aslan-believed I would live through it all, and that when it was over, no one would ever have to know. Especially not Peter."

"He would have understood," Lucy whispered, reaching out and squeezing Edmund's hand. "I know he would have. He feels as awful about your illness as you felt about his! Don't you know, Edmund, that he would have-"

Edmund squeezed her hand back and shook his head. "Don't say that, Lu, it's useless now. It'll do nothing more than upset us and make us disagree for no reason. I didn't want him to know, he didn't know, and now you do. Do you understand?"

Lucy said yes; but she said it rather sullenly, and Edmund was not at all convinced.

Nevertheless, he went on with his story: "Every once in a while, I caught a chill, nothing too dreadful, but as you know, I was already weakened and not strong enough to fight it off. So it got worse. My hands shook all the time and my eyes were glassy. Most of the time I got better, and I always hid my symptoms from everyone at court."

"Why didn't you use the cordial in the diamond flask?" Lucy wanted to know, as this had been bugging her from the moment the magical little flask was mentioned. "One drop for Peter left plenty for you, didn't it? To keep you well?"

"Actually, I did use it. For a long time, if ever I got very sick and didn't want anyone to know, I'd just take a teeny drop on my tongue and make myself well again."

"Did you run out?"

Edmund's face turned scarlet. "Oh, Lucy, you'll think the worse of me for being clumsy as well as stupid, but I suppose you need to know this to understand: I dropped it."

"You dropped it?" echoed Lucy in disbelief.

"Yes, early one morning-after dancing since a little passed midnight, of course-my hands were shaking and I had a terrible cough." He shook his head venomously at the memory, silently scolding himself. "I dropped the open flask on the ground and it all poured out."

"Every single drop?" Lucy gasped in horror.

He nodded and pointed his finger out with emphasis. "Every. Single. Drop."

"So you just got worse and worse until..."

"Exactly." he sighed, leaning his head back on the tree trunk behind them. Cracking a smile, he added, "But that floor's never dented no matter how many times I've fallen down on it."

She would have giggled if his story had not been so tragic; she only smiled back with her lips, her eyes holding the sadness she felt for him.

"Maybe we should rest now so that we can get back to Cair Paravel before we're too greatly missed." Edmund sighed, letting go of her hand and putting his arm around her again.

"There is one thing I don't get," said Lucy, speaking softly into his ear. "How did you come to know the fairy queen in the first place?"

Edmund yawned. "Simple, really. I was kidnapped by her ladies once when I was six."

Lucy's eyes widened. "You were?"

"Yes; sometimes fairies take servants from humans and I guess they liked my face when they found me. I'd stepped into one of their little fairy-rings by mistake-in the forest, during one of my father's hunting trips." he explained shortly. "Anyway, the fairy queen made them take me back to the ring they found me in because I was of royal birth and they weren't allowed to take royalty by force."

"No, only by cruel manipulation." Lucy muttered angrily, her own hands shaking now-and not from the cold, either.

"What?"

"Nothing." she sighed.

"Anyhow, I remembered the way to their realm afterwards."

"Hmm." Lucy, fight it as she might, was falling asleep.

As soon as he was sure she really was totally asleep and could not feel, see, or hear him, Edmund lightly kissed the top of her head. "Thank you...for everything."

At Cair Paravel, Peter over-slept. He had meant to get up at the crack of dawn and to escort Lucy out of his little brother's sick chamber; but dawn had already risen a good couple of hours before his eyes opened. Groggily, he stretched his arms over his head and sighed to himself heavily. It wasn't that he wanted to discourage Lucy's sweet, helpful ways-truly he did love them-but as it was doing nothing besides making Edmund's illness harder still for the castle-folk to bear, he knew he must do something about it. At least there would be no more sitting-up to be arranged. After all, King Frank had given Lucy leave for only that one last night. Dear Princess Lucy-bless her-it wasn't her fault, however stubborn she could be.

As he walked passed Susan's chamber, he noticed the door was a little ajar and, quickly looking both ways, peeked his head in-taking for granted that she would be asleep.

Instead, she was standing in the middle of the room in a long gown of midnight-blue velvet and a low, silver-laced white collar. In her hands she held a small matching hair-piece made of a silver band, blackish satin, and milky-white pearls.

What had happened was that the eldest princess of Ettinsmoor had ordered from the Narnian tailors (intent, now that she was pretty enough to be seen again, that she should dress in the Narnian style like the rest of the court instead of her familiar Ettinsmoor capes and hoods, however nice they might be) a new gown, which had been delivered early that morning, at the crack of dawn, finished and ready for a fitting. Of course, even someone as fond of stylish clothing as Susan was, knew it was early to try anything on, but as she had woken by accident when the maidservants bumped into everything trying to leave the gown behind for her 'quietly', and could not fall back asleep, she thought she might as well.

"Oh!" Susan spun around, gasping when she saw Peter standing there.

"Sorry," he apologized automatically, aware that he was probably blushing.

Susan smiled coyly and lowered her eyes. "I didn't want you to see my new gown yet-it's Narnian-do you like it?"

"It's very... _becoming_..." Peter stammered, feeling like an idiot. Indeed, the Narnian garment did look very good on her, the blue bringing out her eyes, the combination of dark gown and dark hair against her light-coloured face a strikingly beautiful contrast, but he was still recovering from the embarrassment of walking in on her while she was changing her clothes. It wasn't as if he had actually _seen_ anything, but still.

"You don't think the waistline makes me look... _thick_...?" Susan pondered vainly, in spite of everything, staring at the mirror a few feet away.

"No!" Peter blurted out, secretly imagining what it would be like to put his arms around that waist again and pull her as close to him as he dared...hopefully he would have her for a wife one day and courtly restrictions would no longer apply to them then.

"I'm being stupid." said Susan, realizing that perhaps she hadn't learned as much of a lesson from being ugly as she liked to think she had.

"You're not." Peter told her gently. Then, "I was on my way to escort your sister out of my brother's chamber, would you like to come with me?"

Susan's face changed, no longer delighted over new clothes, more concerned both with her lover's brother's failing health, and her sister's never-waning determination. "Poor things; the both of them."

"Poor Lucy, especially, I think." Peter said sadly. "She's so set on..." His voice trailed off.

"I know, it's all rather tragic."

"Almost like a fairy-story," the words slipped out of Peter's mouth before he realized what he was saying; realized that he almost-for just that one second-believed Lucy's wild stories of the fairy-court.

"What?" Susan's forehead crinkled; she was not sure if she had heard him right.

"Nothing." Peter amended quickly, taking her arm under his as they walked down the corridor together.

When they arrived at Edmund's sick chamber, they found no one there. Calling out their siblings' names, there was no answer. In desperation, Peter pulled back all the dark, heavy curtains in the room to let in enough light to see by.

Susan let out a scream.

"What is it?" he was instantly at her side.

She pointed down at the floor by the bedside; bloody foot-prints, just Edmund's size.

"By the Lion!" exclaimed Peter, wondering what on earth Edmund had been standing up for.

"Mercy," breathed Susan, trying not to hyperventilate. "There's more of them! Peter, look!"

He looked; the dark-blood, foot-shaped marks led right out of the chamber, into the corridor. They had not noticed the prints when they had been walking out there, but now they wondered how they-and anyone else for that matter-could have possibly missed them.

"What was he doing?" Peter mumbled, wanting both to find Edmund so that he might embrace his brother, telling the poor boy everything would be alright (even if it really wouldn't), and then to wring his sorry neck afterwards.

"Where's Lucy?" Susan wanted to know, looking around anxiously, lifting up her gown's long train so as not to get any blood on it by accident. "You don't think he took her with him-where ever he went?"

Edmund was too sick to go off anywhere, as he ought to have been smart enough to know, and Lucy...what the devil was that girl thinking?!

Peter gritted his teeth, his eyes glittering with unshed tears. "I'm going to kill him."

Susan tried to calm him by putting a hand on his shoulder. The crown prince reached up and patted it lightly, though he looked no less agitated.

"You may not have to," a voice from behind them said.

A yelp escaped from Susan's throat when she caught sight of the goaty little creature standing behind them reflected in the mirror on the far-side of the sick chamber.

Peter turned around and stared at the faun with his brows furrowing. "Who are you?"

"My name is Tumnus, Crown Prince of Narnia," said the faun, bowing gracefully. "We really need to talk."


	16. Placed Under House Arrest

"We're nearly there." Edmund commented as he and Lucy finally found themselves coming to the end of the constant trees; a clearing, a hedge and-a little ways off from that-Cair Paravel looming ahead of them.

Lucy smiled faintly with relief and clung to the side of his arm, still a little worn-down, even after their rest. At least it would all be over soon.

"Look out!" cried Edmund, pulling himself and Lucy down suddenly with no explanation.

Right above their heads, an arrow the colour of starlight hit the bark of the tree closest to them-making a sound rather like that of a mirror shattering-then disintegrated just like the wand Lucy had used to take away Susan's ugliness had.

The fairies! Lucy thought with horror. "They've seen us!" How could they come after them? All this way? What if they pursued them all the way to the front doors of the castle? What did they want?

Edmund didn't seem to think the fairies would follow them passed the clearing, and he was quite right in thinking this; for though one last arrow did fly-not even coming anywhere near them-as soon as they had run out from among the trees, there were no signs of anyone following them.

"Why are they doing this?" Lucy panted, her eyes widening.

"It's only to be expected," said Edmund, sounding far calmer than she was at the moment. "Their queen might be dead for all we know, Lu-because of us."

Lucy felt as though she might be sick. Up until Edmund had said it, she had never thought of it like that. In all her hatred for the queen, it had never been that she literally wanted to kill her-only that she wanted to help Edmund. Of course, because of the ravens with iron beaks and the broken scepter, she probably was no more.

On the one hand, that knowledge made Lucy feel a pang of regret, a small share of her innocence a little torn up. On the other hand, it made her wonder if perhaps, now that the heartless creature was gone, Edmund really was free after all. Provided of course that he avoided the other fairies from then on. The uncertainty of the whole thing made her uneasy, but there was nothing she could do about that.

When they finally reached Cair Paravel, Edmund showed her how to climb up the castle wall back into his sick chamber.

"Oh, but won't the window be locked?" Lucy asked him.

"You would think so," Edmund chuckled, shaking his head, "but in all likelihood, it's not."

"How do you know?"

"No one besides me ever tries to climb in or out of it."

"I thought you always used the corridor to get to the stables."

"I didn't at first." Edmund told her. "I used the corridor passage down to the stables only when my illness started making me so dizzy that I'd fall and hurt myself sneaking out this way."

"So you always left the window open?" Lucy double checked.

"Not open, exactly, but unlocked." said Edmund, with an easy shrug of his shoulders. "Who else was going to bother breaking in except for me?"

"An assassin?" Lucy guessed timidly.

"They wouldn't have thought I would have been dumb enough not to bar my own window at night or at least have a servant do it for me." Edmund laughed, winking at her.

Lucy giggled. "But you just said-"

He nodded and rolled his eyes. "That's the _joke_ , Lu."

The double window creaked open when they had climbed onto the sill, Edmund holding Lucy's middle so that she wouldn't fall down. Then they strolled into the sick chamber, noticing-not without some surprise-that it wasn't dark for once, the curtains on one window (not the one they snuck back in by) being pulled back.

Lucy glanced at the unlit fireplace, felt the breeze from the open window hit her side, and sneezed.

Not wanting her to catch anything, remembering that she had taken quite a dunking the night before (they _both_ had), Edmund took one of his warmest cloaks from the wardrobe-a large wool-and-silk one lined with some sort of bear-fur, and placed it over her shoulders.

"Thank you," Lucy said as he gently nudged her over to the chair closest to the fireplace.

Starting up a proper fire, turning over some wood with the gold-plated tongs, and cleaning away the cold ash from around the hearth, Edmund turned to her and asked, "Are you warm enough?"

She nodded and gazed into the fire as if she were in a dream.

"Since you obviously don't mind wearing my clothes," Edmund teased, pulling out another one of his tunics and undershirts from the wardrobe, knowing that, even under the cloak, it probably wasn't the best idea for her to sit around in a damp doublet-especially after she'd been wearing it all night.

Lucy nodded again and took the clothing from his arms, noticing once more how handsome he was in spite of being so uncomfortably thin.

"I wont look, I promise." Edmund assured her.

She hadn't thought he would anyway. As soon as his back was turned she changed clothes and slipped the cloak back on over them.

Glancing down at the pile of stiff, lake-cleaned garments on the floor, Edmund noticed the old copper-sheathed dagger, glad that Lucy had used it to protect herself.

"You can take it back, if you like." said Lucy, looking over her shoulder at him.

"It's yours now, Lu, I wanted you to have it."

"Okay, if you're sure you don't mind."

"I don't." Edmund swore.

"You don't have to stand up like that," Lucy said, scooting over on the chair to make room for him, thinking that, healed feet or not, he must be at least a little tired.

Sighing, he sat down close to her and slipped his arm around her again (for warmth, he excused himself). Lucy leaned on his chest and closed her eyes, forgetting herself for a moment, lost in comfort and relief.

The next thing they knew, Peter, Susan, Master Tumnus, and Lord and Lady Scrubb were standing next to the chair, staring at them. Or, more accurately, Master Tumnus, Peter, and Susan were staring at them-Lord Scrubb was looking down at his wife who had gasped and fainted when she saw them.

"For pity's sake, Alberta!" Harold groaned, thinking her a very silly, prudish woman to have fainted so quickly at the sight of a prince and princess sharing a seat by the fire. He'd seen the older prince and princess kissing, and had _he_ fainted? No. He hadn't approved of their behavior, being rather up-tight himself, but he hadn't fainted.

Peter had gone very white, though not from seeing the two of them together, simply from seeing his brother again-no longer ill, thankfully, but some of the effects still visible. He knew now, a little better, what his brother had done for him. Tumnus had explained all that he himself knew.

When the fairies were shrieking and panicking over their queen, the ladies gasping in shock, never having thought their fearless leader could be destroyed, Tumnus had crept away, journeying to Cair Paravel. A good distance away from the bridge, he found Phillip without his riders, half-talking beast, half-witless, all confused, and had led the horse back to the stables before seeking out Crown Prince Peter.

Edmund let go of Lucy and stood up, facing his brother. The two boys stood looking at each other with lumps in their throats for a full two minutes before Peter threw his arms around his brother and started weeping.

"Why did you do it?" whispered Peter, shaking with emotion.

Edmund didn't answer; he just let his brother hold him and cry a while longer before anything else was said.

"Lucy, are you all right?" Susan asked her sister awkwardly, having heard the faun's story, too, feeling stupid for not believing Lucy earlier.

"I'll be fine, I think." stammered Lucy, shifting her gaze from the weeping crown prince to his passed-out aunt on the floor, watching while Lord Harold waved smelling-salts under her nose.

"Your Highness," Tumnus said to Edmund in a rather regretful tone, after Peter had let go of him. "I think you ought to be aware that the fairies will not consider this over-not by a long shot."

"The queen..." Edmund said uneasily, "...is dead?"

Tumnus wasn't sure, but he could assume such if he needed to. "Probably."

"They would charge me for murder?"

"No!" cried Lucy, horrified, leaping to Edmund's defense. It wasn't his fault, it _wasn't_! "He didn't do it, Master Tumnus, surely you saw? He didn't kill her..." her voice trailed off and she lowered her eyes. "...I did."

"What?" Susan grasped her little sister's shoulders gently, trying to understand and to comfort the poor girl at the same time.

"She didn't." Edmund confirmed for them. "She only split the crackernut open...I'm the one responsible for the queen's death."

"If you want technicalities, the black-birds did it," Tumnus sighed, reaching up and clutching at one of his horns absently. "But it isn't the birds-or Lucy of Ettinsmoor-they'll hold responsible. Even if you're pardoned, they'll claim you owe them the time you promised the queen."

"He gave them five years, did he not?" said Peter.

"He promised fifteen." Tumnus reminded them dryly.

Peter reached out and slapped Edmund upside the head. "Stupid!"

"Hey!" Edmund protested. Apparently their touching brotherly moment was over; he was officially an idiot again.

"The prince will have to return to court, to their custody." Tumnus gulped, wishing it were otherwise, knowing it probably couldn't be. "He will have to be put on trial if they wish it."

"Master Tumnus, please!" Lucy exclaimed, tears springing up into her eyes. "They almost killed him...if he goes back..."

"They wont take him." Peter decided firmly, placing his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Not while I am heir to the throne of Narnia, they wont."

"They wont _take_ me," said Edmund, squirming out of Peter's protective grip, "because I will go to them on my own-a bargain is a bargain."

"You were a child, Edmund." Peter reminded him. "No one should be held to something they promised as a child."

"Peter, the fairy court is already angry with me, if I bail on them now, we risk having their enmity with Narnia for ever. Not just through your rein, but through your children and your children's children. Do you really want a potential war with the fairy-realm on your hands?"

"Narnia has survived wars before," Lord Scrubb put in, helping a revived Lady Alberta to her feet.

"Not against a realm like this," Edmund warned them bitterly. "I've seen what the fairies can do. I've even helped them do it-yes, Lucy, it's true, please don't look at me like that."

"You _helped_ them?"

"I was in their court every night for five years; did you think I kept my mouth shut the whole time?"

"Yes, of course!" That was exactly what Lucy had thought.

"Edmund," Peter's voice was sterner now. "You surely do not mean to tell us that you-you gave the fairies information about our court, alliances and wars..."

Edmund closed his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry!" Lord Scrubb shouted, clearly outraged. "You betrayed us to a court of bloody, blasted fairies, and you're _sorry_?"

"Don't yell at him," Peter cut in. Although, secretly, he felt a little angry with his brother, he wasn't about to let someone else talk to him like that.

"You're a traitor!" Lord Scrubb practically spat at Edmund.

"You will leave this room at once if you call him that again." Peter growled.

"I have to do this," Edmund said softly, taking a few steps away from all the concerned-and furious-eyes on him in the chamber. "I have to set everything right."

"No," said Peter, clenching his jaw. "You have been trying to do the right thing for five years-you hid this from me for five years-you are not going anywhere. You, my younger brother, are under my authority. And you are restricted to the grounds."

Edmund's face darkened, his expression clouding as his brows formed a tight frown. "You cannot put me under house-arrest, Peter."

"I just did." Peter told him a mite too cockily.

"It's for your own good." Susan added, trying to be kindly and reassuring.

Upset with his brother, Edmund turned on her next. "Who are you to tell me what's for my own good?"

Susan took a step back, looking hurt.

Peter noticed her face and glared at Edmund. "Don't talk to her like that."

"Shut up." Edmund glowered right back at him.

"Edmund, please, just stay put." begged Peter, his tone a little kinder.

Edmund shook his head.

He sighed heavily. "Then you leave me with no other choice, Edmund. I am going to lock you in this chamber until you come to your senses."

"Do whatever you want, _Crown Prince_." He said 'crown prince' with such contempt that a smack across the face would have hurt Peter a lot less.

"Come, Lucy," Peter took her hand and started pulling her towards the doors.

"I'll stay here with Edmund," she said.

"No, you wont." said Peter, making his grasp on her hand firmer so she couldn't storm back over to his brother's side. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you, Lucy, I really am, but you've done enough."

"Ed-" Lucy appealed to him, thinking that maybe he would say something to make Peter change his mind. She didn't want Edmund to go back to the fairy court, either, but if she knew him at all, she thought for sure that he would-that no locked door was going to stop him. Most of all, she wanted to follow him again, simply for the sake of safety in numbers.

"Go with Peter," he told her.

"I-" she tried as Susan took her other hand and they all but dragged her out of the sick chamber. "-Master Tumnus," she appealed to the faun for help.

Tumnus thought Edmund should be allowed to go back. The younger prince had grown a lot in five years; in light of everything, he truly believed this time Edmund would be able to handle himself. Still, he believed also that a faun should avoid constantly contradicting an heir to the royal throne, and would say nothing more on the subject.

Lucy, distraught, kept thinking of the window; the window Edmund never locked. This time, she was not sure where her loyalty ought to stand. Should she betray Edmund by telling Peter of the window? Or should she let him go back to the fairy-court, staying behind with the others, powerless to help him after all her struggles just to get him this far?

No one was innocent here, not anymore, not even Peter. By accident, it seemed that in less than a half-hour, Edmund had become a traitor, Peter a tyrant, and Tumnus a coward. Where was she supposed to turn?


	17. Prisoners of the Fairy Court

"What are you doing?"

Edmund rolled his eyes and took a deep breath; he still couldn't believe who Peter had ordered to guard him. A beaver. A _talking_ beaver, of course-wearing chain-mail and looking uncommonly fierce holding a miniature spear-but still a beaver all the same.

"I'm leaving." Edmund answered flatly.

"But Prince Peter said you had to stay here." the beaver protested, not unkindly.

"Peter's not king yet," said Edmund, pushing the double-sided window open.

"But-" for all his potential as a guard, the poor beaver was at a loss. Nearly anyone else in his place would have cried out for Peter, tried to stop Edmund by force, or at least have done _something_. But, this beaver was newly knighted and, quite frankly, a little confused. Edmund was right-Peter wasn't king yet, and while Peter _was_ crown prince, until he sat on his father's throne, his word wasn't quite law. What did King Frank want? Last time the beaver had seen King Frank had been right before breakfast. Thinking of breakfast made the beaver hungry; his head whirled with thoughts of hot, fried fish and a pile of thick, hardy wood-chips.

Edmund wasted no time, playing on his guard's confusion and distraction. By the time the beaver truly realized he ought to stop Prince Edmund from climbing out the window, it was too late-he was gone.

For all his pride, all his speed, it must be admitted that Edmund did not fully get his own way in the matter. For when he had climbed down the castle wall, grunted, and leapt-rather gracefully, all things considered-to the ground, there was little Lucy of Ettinsmoor dressed in a velvet Narnian-style riding habit thrown over the tunic of his she was still wearing, two horses at hand, waiting for him.

"L-Lucy?" he stammered softly, glancing over at the two horses in her charge, at once recognizing them as none other than Phillip and her sister's Isbjorn. "What on earth..."

"I'm coming with you." she said firmly, unwilling to be moved in the matter.

"But, Lu," he whispered, looking both ways, thinking perhaps that a gardener might be near-by and possibly over-hear them, "I thought you didn't want me to go back to the fairy court."

Lucy tossed a lock of her hair over one shoulder and shook her head. "No, Edmund, I didn't." Looking him straight in the eyes, her own shinning brightly-if not with tears, then with some measure of sadness over the matter-she added, "But I knew you were going to anyway."

"The window," Edmund realized, knowing that Lucy wasn't stupid enough to think he wouldn't use it again.

She nodded. "The window."

"But, I say, how did you get out here so quickly? Weren't you with Peter and Susan-oh, and Master Tumnus?" How was it possible that she had managed to get away from all of them without causing a row?

"They took me to my chamber, but they didn't lock me in." she pointed out, reminding him that _she_ wasn't the one under house-arrest.

"Did anyone see you?" asked Edmund.

"No," Lucy answered, climbing up onto Isbjorn's back as Edmund put his finger to his lip, warning Phillip not to start mouthing off until they were out of ear-shot of the servants and courtiers that might have been-for all they knew-closer than they would have liked. "I don't think so."

Edmund hesitated. Part of him wanted Lucy at his side through whatever was going to come, a protection against his smaller fears if nothing else, but he also worried for her safety-wishing she'd had the sense to stay behind with Peter and Susan. If he refused her, she wouldn't stand for it. The last three nights had taught him that, at least. It didn't matter if the magic invisibility cloak was no more; the cloak didn't make the journey for her. The bravery, the daring, the unwavering determination-maybe even, he thought in the very back of his mind where he didn't have to hide from it, the love-were all of her own making and choosing. Nothing would stop her from coming, so he might as well save time and stop resisting.

The beaver finally reported to the crown prince, wincing in embarrassment for failing at his post, that his chamber-bound charge had taken off.

Susan, of course at Peter's side yet again, felt a tremor of fear at hearing this, and raced to Lucy's chamber, hoping-though she didn't think it likely-that her sister was still there.

"She's gone," Susan told the crown prince, who had buried his face in his hands, rubbing his forehead with frustration. "No guesses where."

"We have to go after them," Peter finally decided, taking his fingers away from his brows and sighing heavily.

"Do you know where the fairy-court is?" asked Susan practically, not having the faintest clue herself.

"No." Peter admitted sadly. "Dear Aslan, what is the matter with those siblings of ours? If they would only stay put..."

"They never will," Susan told him, knowing her sister to be brave and his brother-from what she gathered as of late-to be somewhat impulsive and honour-bound. Getting in the way of either of them was difficult; stopping them both from doing something they had set their minds on doing might be as useless as trying to keep the tide from coming in.

"Well, we can't just do nothing." said Peter in a kingly tone.

"Master Tumnus," Susan turned to the faun now, "if Edmund and Lucy go to the fairy-court, is it guaranteed that they have to stand trial?"

"Not Lucy," said Tumnus, tossing back his bare shoulders; "they don't care a fig about her-not a Grand Duchess turned princess of Ettinsmoor-but Edmund...they'll keep him in custody until they can decide what to do with him."

"If he runs?" Peter asked.

"You know he wont run." Master Tumnus raised an eyebrow and shook his head.

"If someone _made_ him run," he clarified.

Tumnus smirked at that. "You mean, if you came and carried him off?"

"What else could I mean?" Peter demanded crossly. "You don't think I would have ever let my brother get mixed up with that unreliable-not to mention other worldly-court in the first place if I'd known anything about it!"

"Of course not, your Highness, but he's a strong-headed young man, you know."

"You don't think I can get him out of there, do you?"

"Not in one piece, no." said Tumnus in a gloomy tone.

"Wait," Susan cut in, her eyes darkening a shade, narrowing in on Tumnus. "Doesn't Tumnus know where the fairy-court is? Why doesn't he show us the way?"

"You wont stop your brother from going on trial," the faun warned them in an almost fatherly fashion, clinking his tongue, "but if you wish to go to the court for yourselves, of course it would be my duty to your royal Highnesses to take you there."

"Good," said Peter, declaring the matter settled. "Tell the servants to prepare the horses-we leave at once."

Meanwhile, Edmund and Lucy arrived at the fairy court, met with the icy stares of the queen's closest ladies, all arrayed in beautiful frocks and mourning headdresses, no queen in sight.

So that's that, then, Lucy realized, the queen is definitely gone.

Edmund swallowed hard and greeted a young fairy-lad a year or so his junior, probably one of the dead queen's sons or brothers, who stood before him in royal clothing, holding a golden rod in the shape of a water-reed that was most likely meant to represent the broken scepter of the queen.

"You've come back, Prince Edmund?" he asked, as if there could be some misunderstanding afoot. "On your own?"

"I have promised a duty of fifteen years to this court, Lord Regent. Until that time has ended, I am not free to make up my own mind as to where I will show my face." Edmund spoke tightly, giving away so little with his face that Lucy nearly thought he could pass for a real member of the fairy-court himself if it were not for the slightest trace of tears being blinked back-try as he might to hide them.

The Regent fairy snapped his fingers. "You are aware that you, young princeling of Narnia, will be apprehended here until further notice?"

"So be it." said Edmund, holding out his wrists to show he would not fight them off.

"The lady with you," he motioned over at Lucy, "has she come as your traveling companion?"

Don't they know me for the one who released the black-birds that killed their queen? Lucy wondered, though she said nothing aloud, merely goggling at the regent and standing a little closer to Edmund.

"Why do you ask?"

"If she is here to attend to you, she can stay with you during your imprisonment-it is the right of a man of noble birth to have an attendant." the Lord Regent explained shortly. "If not, she'll have to go back to the human lands."

Edmund opened his mouth, clearly about to say she was a princess, that she was by no means to attend to him, and that they ought to arrange to send her back at once. But then he happened to glance over at her, looking at him so intently, so obviously not wanting to separated from him, and he couldn't do it. He couldn't send her back.

"She's here as my attendant." the prince gave in, glancing downwards, knowing he was probably going to regret this later.

Even those who did know Lucy for who she was, did not doubt his word. This may largely have been because of how she was dressed; royal garments but not maiden's clothing other than the habit. Any well-loved page might have dressed the same, and it was not for the fairies to say who the prince could and could not have in his household company. Even if she was a princess in Ettinsmoor, she wasn't _quite_ one in Narnia, and she wasn't much of one in the fairy realm. In essence, she was whoever Edmund said she was.

In what felt like little more than another finger snap, Lucy and Edmund were whisked off to another part of the court-one neither of them were familiar with. It wasn't a dungeon, as Lucy had thought it might be; which was somewhat relieving. Instead, it was a bright little room painted in rich plum-like colours with a grand canopied bed covered by a thick, silken comforter in the middle of it. The four diamond-paned, square-shaped windows were not the sort that opened up, perfectly bared off, completely part of the structure of the building. If it wasn't for those windows, they might have forgotten they were prisoners-one of them very likely awaiting trial, if not something worse.

At the foot of the bed, there was a long silver couch for the prisoner's attendant to sleep on, but it had been a given in Edmund's mind from the moment they walked in, that he would be a gentleman, letting Lucy take the bed and reserving the couch for himself.

"As long as you are here," a fairy-lady who looked older than most-her hair a bit closer to silver than to blonde-told them as the Lord Regent prepared to lock them in, "three meals and a light tea will be brought up to you daily. The carafe you will find next to the basin on the washstand fills up with water and wine on its own, if you should get thirsty. You will not be permitted to leave this chamber under any circumstances, but in case of an emergency, someone may come at any given time to collect you."

Lucy knew that it was technically Edmund they were addressing, yet she couldn't help feeling a little like a criminal herself. This was understandable of course, seeing as she was going to be staying in there with him until the fairies said they could leave, even if it was by her own choice.

No one paid her any mind, however, more concerned with the prince, and she wondered if she dared to speak up and ask a question if they wouldn't have been startled to see she was still there. She wondered if a few of them had possibly forgotten that she wasn't a page, or a lad, or thought to remember that nearly anywhere else such disregard for a noble-born female would have been unseemly. She thought of Susan, how appalled her elder sister would have been if she had been there; imagining the fair lily-white nose wrinkling up with distain. Thinking of Susan made her feel both a little better-giving her a reason to smile-and a little worse-seeing herself as small and, except for Edmund, utterly alone in a strange court.

"You don't have to do this," Edmund whispered into Lucy's ear before all the fairies had left them, "You know that, right?"

For an answer, Lucy reached for his hand and squeezed it.

He knew what it meant; it meant she was staying, the matter was closed, and to please shut up about it.

When the door, a tan-coloured sliding double-sided fixture that smelled like sandal-wood and locked only from the outside, clicked shut, Lucy asked, "Are you scared?"

"I don't know." Edmund answered honestly, not sure how he was feeling at the moment.

Lucy sighed and sat down on the couch, taking the copper-sheathed dagger out of her pocket and cradling it in her hands for comfort. Edmund might not have known if he was scared or not, but Lucy, though she would have never, never admitted it for fear of tugging too roughly at the prince's conscience, knew she was afraid.


	18. Much Ado About Aslan

Lucy stood in the corridor outside of the fairy court's trial-chamber in a new rose-coloured dress. It wasn't that she had wanted to change out of the tunic, tights, and habit-it was that Susan had more or less _made_ her do so.

Peter and Susan, led by Master Tumnus, had come to see them, looking anxious and a little cross. Peter had nothing too pleasant to say about Edmund's wandering off after he had placed him under house-arrest, and while Lucy didn't agree with every word he said, she couldn't help seeing where he was coming from. Maybe Edmund would have been better off staying back at Cair Paravel. Or, maybe it would have been worse-they'd never know now, so it was a useless thought to harp on.

Another issue that had had to be immediately addressed was the 'dishonour' of Lucy being regarded as a prince's attendant when she was royal herself. Susan was aghast over this and would have started a row about the matter if there had been any chance of doing so without getting Lucy tossed out of the fairy court. As it was, she and Peter were only allowed above the servants' chambers where they stayed as Master Tumnus's guests, treated no more royally than anyone else, for brief visits. If the elder princess of Ettinsmoor was to insist on her sister's rights, Peter's brother would be left completely alone, and Susan was not so heartless as to do that to him.

For, while Edmund never _said_ he was frightened, more or less in a quiet state of unknowing shock, anyone by this point-Lucy included-could have seen how white his face was. At first, she thought it was only his illness, until she remembered that he wasn't sick anymore. He wasn't weak physically, it was all nerves. No one who had taken one look at him could have dreamed of making him spend the night in that little room, waiting and waiting, hour upon hour, all by himself, with no one to turn to for comfort.

So, Susan got her own way in that Lucy should at least dress decently. Her sister could be the attendant of a princeling awaiting trial all she wanted, Susan decided, but she wasn't going to do so dressed in garments meant for noble _men_. At least the dress was Narnian; soft layers of fabric with a comfortable lining and billowy sleeves; no Ettinsmoor headdresses or Telmarine hoods, which was somewhat reassuring in its own way.

Edmund was allowed to wear a sword at his hip, largely for the look of the thing, but not for any real protection. The sheer number of well-armed fairy courtiers gathering together reminded them all that it would be madness to actually _use_ a sword in that place. Even Peter didn't think he could do anything; forced to stand aside, letting things happen however they would take place.

No one had expected a trial to be arranged so quickly; certainly not Edmund. More than anyone else he had thought he would spend a longer time in custody, staying in that little room night after night. As it had turned out, however, they only spent one night there before the trial was arranged and set to begin. Nobody knew how long the trial would be for, and Edmund knew he might have to return to the room after each session, never even knowing if he was any closer to being let out than he had been the day before. Unless of course, they chose to sentence him to death. He had said nothing of this, not wanting to upset Peter or frighten Lucy, but he knew it was a possibility, which was one of the reasons he had become so quiet.

"Prince Edmund of Narnia," a voice from behind the trial-chamber doors bellowed, "come to court!"

"Come on, Lu." Edmund touched her arm lightly. As his attendant, she was the only one allowed to cross over into trial-chamber with him; Peter and Susan had to stand out in the corridor with Tumnus who was also not permitted to enter.

"Be a good girl, Lucy, just tell them what happened." said Susan, trying not to cry as she hastily tucked a stray piece of hair behind her little sister's ear. "Everything's going to be all right."

"I'll be fine," Lucy replied flatly, knowing that was the best she could possibly say. _She_ would be fine, but Edmund's future was doubtful.

Susan swallowed hard and kissed Lucy's forehead. "I know, I know."

"Take care of him in there," Peter whispered as he embraced Lucy tightly, hoping he wasn't putting too much weight on her shoulders by saying that; "and...just...just be safe...okay?"

Lucy nodded. "Peter, you're crying." she said, noticing the tears rolling down his face as he pulled away.

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and laughed lightly. "Sorry."

"It's all right."

"Edmund of Narnia, come to court!" the voice bellowed again. It was far more terse this time, and his title had been dropped.

"Better not keep them waiting any longer." Edmund said as he and Lucy disappeared behind the heavy doors-which were very dark and made of oak.

Susan plucked at her necklace, clinking her index fingernail against the side of the white-gold Christmas Rose pendant. "Peter?"

He sighed and turned his head over in her direction. "Yes?"

"It really is going to be all right in the end, isn't it?" she whispered falteringly. "I mean, I suppose Edmund _can_ face them?"

Peter closed his eyes and didn't open them for nearly a full minute. "I think that's what he's going in there to find out."

The inside of the trial-chamber looked rather like a large, old-fashioned theatre. The dais was thick, long, and well-polished like a stage, indeed, there were even long red curtains that pulled upwards instead of to the side. A round golden box inlaid with dark red and green gemstones-sort of like a balcony, only there was nothing holding it up, nor was it attached to anything-floated a foot or two off the ground in the dead centre of the room.

The direction of the fairy-guards made it clear that Edmund was supposed to go in there, and that his hands were to be tied with a diamond chain for the remainder of the session. Lucy was given a little round white-gold stool with three silver legs at his side to sit on. She wasn't to be bound or restrained in any way, so as to be at hand if the prince needed her to fetch him anything-given that it was not a weapon of any sort, because he was allowed only the one sword-but they warned her that if she misbehaved, her wrists would be in copper shackles before she could say 'crackernut'.

After a great deal of debating back and forth, one of the male fairies, a courtier who seemed to be second in command to the Lord Regent, and a good deal older than most of the other members of the court, announced, "I have to say, all things considered, I could consent to this boy's head being brought to the queen's family on a platter, and I wouldn't lose much sleep over it."

This was too much for Lucy, who bolted up from her stool, just barely willing herself to keep her hidden dagger in its sheath while she did so, and cried out, "But Edmund didn't kill your queen; he sliced her scepter in self-defense!"

"I heard nothing of the sort," the Lord Regent answered in a surprisingly mild tone.

"It wasn't in self-defense." Edmund spoke up, looking flushed and tired, completely contradicting Lucy-even if he did feel a little bad about doing so. "I knew what I was doing."

"Edmund!" It wasn't murder-he knew it wasn't-and he was more or less confessing? Lucy was horrified.

"Are you pleading guilty?" the Lord Regent asked, fiddling with his golden water-reed rod while he spoke.

Edmund shook his head; he was not going quite so far as that. "No, I plead innocent. I knew what I was doing, I've admitted that-punish me for it if you like-but I didn't do it out of spite or as a murder attempt. It wasn't self-defense, but..." his eyes flickered over to Lucy, and he looked as if he were about to say something more about what had taken place on his last night of dancing, her third night of following him, but he didn't. "...Look here, I know I owe this court ten more years, and I know you all hate me right now, but that doesn't mean I deserve to die."

There was a little bit of uncertain murmuring, followed by a short, "Is that all you will say on the subject matter, your Highness?"

Edmund sighed, bit his lower lip lightly, released it, and replied, "Yes, that's all."

"And your attendant who speaks out of turn? Does she have anything further to state before judgment is passed?"

"No, she-" started Edmund before Lucy stood up and cut in again, fighting back the childish urge to stand on her little stool itself just to seem taller in front of these massive, non-human creatures; to be better-heard.

"Edmund is a Narnian and as such he falls under the law of the great Lion, Aslan." Lucy spoke boldly, daring to look the whole counsel square in their faces by turn. "He was only a boy when he bargained with your court to save his brother's life, and he's innocent now, so I beg of you-of all of you-to spare him this disgrace. But if you will not, if you insist on continuing this and truly passing a judgment that could save his life or-" her voice faltered, tears choked her, and she swallowed hard in order to continue; "-or end it, then let it be in a proper manner. Let it be by the only authority a Narnian would recognize-the only one I will recognize-Aslan himself."

Edmund blinked in amazement. "She's batty," he whispered to himself in an awe-struck, clearly impressed, mumble.

"She's brilliant!" Master Tumnus all but shouted at the top of his lungs when the news reached the servant chambers.

The Faun was cutting some bread to go with the left-over soup from a previous ball they were going to have for their tea as he mulled over what he heard regarding the trial. Neither Peter nor Susan were keen on eating anything at the fairy court, but Tumnus assured them the soup and bread was perfectly safe, not at all enchanted, and that they would need to eat, seeing as they didn't know when the trial would officially be declared over. It wasn't as if they could just fast until whenever it was finished.

Susan smoothed a wrinkle in the bodice of her gown. The gown was the Narnian one Peter had walked in on her trying on before, but the headdress was an Ettinsmoor-style hood, resting heavily on her hairline. "Lucy did _what_ at the trial, exactly?"

"She called on the authority of Aslan, the great Lion of Narnia." Tumnus said, almost breathless, surprised she didn't catch the importance of it, her lover being the crown prince of Narnia and all that.

"Why do the fairies recognize him?" Peter wanted to know; he had some vague idea that the fairies respected the great Lion to some extent but didn't understand why that was so. "They aren't Narnians, are they?"

"It's complicated." said Tumnus, lightly knocking the side of his left hoof against one leg of the table. "There is an old story-a very old story, actually, so old no one can be sure where it came from, unless its true-that when Aslan sang Narnia up into existence-as many people, largely Narnians, but others as well, believe he did, his final note pierced through the barrier between already existing worlds and created the realm the fairies call home. Another story is that when Aslan laughed at the first joke that ever was in Narnia-something about a jackdaw, I think, though I couldn't say for sure-his laugh made the fairies themselves."

"Did the fairy queen believe those stories?" Susan asked, wondering if a great roaring Lion-however grand and beautiful he was said to be-could really be any better than a fairy-court. But at least Aslan was kind, having the sort of emotions a human could find familiar-all the stories agreed on that-and there was some hope to be had.

Tumnus poured himself a cup of tea out of a whistling silver kettle. " _Officially_ she believed it. Lots of things were done 'in the Lion's name', but I don't think she would have liked to meet him for real."

"Does that mean her former subjects will let Edmund go?" asked Susan, reaching up daintily with a clean handkerchief to wipe a small drop of butter off of her lower lip.

The faun slipped his tea pensively. "Perhaps if it weren't for the ten years he still owes them, they might let him go-with some form of probation or bailing monies, of course."

"And _with_ the ten years?" Peter inquired anxiously.

"Very uncertain." said Master Tumnus. "If we are fortunate, and Aslan really does turn up, they'd release him to the Lion quickly enough."

"If he doesn't come?" pressed Peter.

"Then you might as well take Susan and Lucy, and go back home to Narnia, ruling from Cair Paravel, trying your best not to think about your brother still being here."

"Master Tumnus!" cried both Peter and Susan at once, looking equally horrified.

"They won't kill him," Tumnus explained in an understanding voice, "not now that Lucy of Ettinsmoor has pointed out his Narnian birthright to be judged by Aslan or else a king under him-it would seem like bad form in such a grand court, and they wouldn't care much for that. But if the Lion never comes, then they'll just keep him here."

"Wait a minute!" Susan exclaimed, grabbing onto the side of Peter's arm excitedly. "A king under Aslan-that's King Frank! King Frank can-" she stopped talking when she noticed Peter shaking his head sorrowfully.

"They wont allow it, Su, never in a million years." he said.

"Why not?"

"Because King Frank is his father and would be compromised. The fairies would never accept any ruling on his part over this matter. What's more, if Master Tumnus is correct, they don't respect the kings under Aslan none too greatly-there aren't any stories of _them_ singing the court into existence."

"But it's hopeless, then!" Susan threw her hands into the air in exasperation, rolling her eyes. "Everyone knows Aslan never turns up anywhere now-a-days."

Peter looked stunned, his face recoiling almost as if she had just slapped him. "Of course he does, Susan."

"I've never met him, have you?" she pointed out logically.

"I _saw_ him...once..." Peter stammered, feeling like a stupid tell-tale child under her overly-mature gaze; thinking that if this was how poor little Lucy felt most of time, he would never disbelief a word that came out of her mouth ever again. "...walking along the beach-a little ways off from Cair Paravel."

"It mightn't have been Aslan at all," Susan told him, "You could have seen any old lion padding down near the sea."

Peter thought her rather stupid for saying this, though, in all fairness, he never held it against her afterwards, even when he really wanted to. Of course it was Aslan-not only did the stories all agree the Lion came from the east, and from across the sea, but he had _known_ , just known, when he'd seen the golden manned figure shining under the light of the setting sun. He just knew. The same way he was sure Lucy would know-perhaps with even more conviction than he himself had over the matter-if she were to see the Lion.

"I really don't think so, Susan."

"Then you believe he'll come?"

His eyes watered as he hid his emotions by swallowing a spoonful of soup, gulping it down as hard as possible. "I hope so, by the Lion's mane, I hope so."


	19. Within the Aftermath

The trial-chamber was almost dead-silent. There were fewer courtiers present than there had been the day before, during the last session.

Edmund wondered why he'd been brought back in there, seeing as they seemed no closer to announcing a punishment, and yet had sent a fairy-guard to fetch the prince of Narnia and his attendant anyway. He glanced at Lucy on her stool; she sighed and looked over at the diamond chains on his wrists. There was nothing really to be said. Actually, they had barely talked all night. A few quiet whispers at most, a half-hearted question or two, and a muttered good-night. They weren't cross, but both knew that the other was frightened and neither seemed to want to admit it, much less talk about it.

Fidgeting absently with a piece of the pale brocade fabric on yet another 'proper' dress Susan had insisted she wear for the trial, something similar to the Narnian style but clearly made in Ettinsmoor, Lucy found herself thinking about how far they-she and Edmund-had both come since their first meeting. So clearly she could see, just peeping lightly behind her closed eyelids, his pale, sickly figure in bed, looking up at her. She could even still hear his raspy voice inquiring if she was the one who had kicked Peter in the shins. More than anything, she didn't want to believe it was over; she didn't want to think that the fairies would really dispose of him. They seemed like they wouldn't, but their unreadable, uncomprehendible emotions were not something Lucy felt comfortable relying on.

The fairy courtiers rose up hastily, staring at something in the doorway; their silken robes and fancy-lace gowns of gold and silver shimmered as a few of them bowed. The others lowered their eyes respectfully as the chamber filled with a faint padding sound that Lucy thought was one of the sweetest sounds she had ever heard in her life.

Looking over her shoulder, she saw him; Aslan, the great Lion of Narnia, strolling into the fairy-court. He was so golden and beautiful, as large as horse-if not a bit bigger-and ever so much grander. His handsome light-and-dark gold paws were quite terrible, but that was all right because they were clearly velveted, harmless to those he wished to be gentle with.

It is really _Him_! Lucy thought with beaming, shining jubilation, and he's come for Edmund!

As the Lion passed the box and her stool, Lucy gazed at him in wonder, feeling the warmth of his eyes landing on her, making her feel giddy and safe and brave all at once. Their eyes met completely, and within that one glance, she knew they were friends and was for ever glad of it, knowing friendship with a creature like Aslan did not easily wane.

Edmund's eyes widened at the sight of the Lion and he bowed as Lucy curtsied, feeling happy just like she was, though racked with a trace of fear she was not plagued with.

"Release the boy prince of Narnia," the rich deep voice of the Lion commanded the fairy court, his handsomely dark orange-gold eyes flickering with specks of amber. "Everything shall be arranged."

What does he mean by 'arranged'? Lucy would have thought to wonder if she had been able to think of much else besides the grandeur of Aslan.

At once, a fairy courtier snapped their fingers and the diamond chains around Edmund's hands broke off and disintegrated before the eyes of the whole court.

Edmund stood and walked over to Aslan who nodded somberly at him and let out a roar that seemed to fill the whole room with sound and light.

For a moment Lucy felt as if she was standing upon nothing at all, being no place in particular, until the light dimmed ever so slightly, and she could just make out the shape of Cair Paravel. Standing at her right, were Susan and Peter, looking confused and breathless. At her left, Edmund, looking not at all confused, but a little tired with a sad expression of resigned fate clouding his face. She did wonder what he could possibly be so sad about, but she was not to see him truly disheartened until after the banquet held in the grandest of the Narnian castle's chambers to herald both Aslan's visit and Edmund's safe return from the fairies.

While everyone was eating and drinking, seeming relieved and pleased, Aslan and Edmund slipped away from the crowd, walking outside.

No one had seemed to notice except for Lucy who had been talking to Lady Pole and Duke Clarence-both wearing fine new clothing, a lovely crimson gown and a splendid rich russet doublet-when she saw a thin white figure and a faint flash of golden fur pass by, going towards the door.

Because both the prince and the Lion walked along the beach near the eastern sea itself, Lucy hadn't needed to follow them outdoors; she simply watched from the balcony, pretending to admire the view, really wondering what it was Edmund was nodding and looking forlorn about while Aslan spoke to him. She sighed heavily, wondering also what had become of Master Tumnus and whether or not he was happy to still be at the fairy-court if that was where he had remained.

The lower part of her gown's sleeves were made of light, clear fabric and she could feel a faint breeze knocking at them. Lucy ignored this and went on wondering. Most confusing of all was the sense that, in spite of everything, Edmund was still not free. It was an unpleasant thought, and worse still, it was one that did not make much sense. If Aslan had freed him, shouldn't he be free?

When she saw Edmund coming back (he was on his own, as Aslan had turned away after their conversation, having other countries and worlds to attend to), she rushed out to meet him. To her surprise, he smiled at her politely but with no warmth, no signs of recognition. Indeed, for a passing moment she truly thought he _hadn't_ recognized her for whatever reason, as he seemed so distant. He spoke to her with only a few passing words before wandering off, leaving her with tears in her eyes that she could not explain.

For the whole evening she struggled against her despair and sadness, telling herself he was only tired and was busy thinking over whatever Aslan had said to him, and that the next day he would be back to normal.

Actually, the next day was worse. He looked graver, a strange sort of almost home-sickness hanging over him, and he barely said two words.

Later, the King of Ettinsmoor arrived (Queen Helen was not with him, she was on holiday in Telmar) and Edmund didn't so much as mumble a proper greeting, pretending that he didn't even see him arrive.

"Edmund," King Frank finally broke through the ice and miles his son had been keeping around himself since the day before and spoke to the princeling, "the king of Ettinsmoor is here to discuss giving Princess Susan in marriage to your brother; don't you feel there is a certain tender subject you should like to talk with him regarding?"

"No," said Edmund apathetically, looking downwards.

"About _Lucy_ , Edmund?" tried the king.

"No, Father."

"Edmund!" King Frank scolded him. He had promised Lucy that she might have his younger son if she could save him from his grievous illness, and now that she had, he expected that his son would have been grateful-not to mention have seen what a splendid young lady the younger princess of Ettinsmoor was-and would have been perfectly willing to wed her in a year or two. And yet, here was Edmund, uncaring and cold, not wanting her at all. It was appalling, really.

An hour later, Edmund was upstairs in his chamber (finally he was allowed back in his old bed chamber, the one that had belonged to him before he'd gotten ill and been moved) when Peter walked in, just barely tapping the side of the door with his knuckles so that he could honestly say he'd knocked first.

Edmund ignored his brother, pulling out an open black leather satchel with a thick, gold buckle-clasp and stuffing a few unfolded tunics into it in a manner that would have amused Lucy and thoroughly disgusted Susan had either of them been there.

"You know, Ed," Peter teased him, not noticing yet that Edmund seemed to be packing to go somewhere, "when Susan and I are married and the girls live with us for good, you can't swim naked in the moat anymore."

"I don't swim naked in the moat!" he insisted, taking a greatcoat out of his wardrobe and folding it in half in a very untidy fashion.

"I remember one time you did."

"Pete, I lost a bet against Duke Clarence-it was that or drop my tights and underpants in front of the visiting Calormenes." Edmund paused for a moment, looking discomfited at the memory. "I flipped a coin."

Peter rolled his eyes and chuckled.

"Besides, I was five." retorted Edmund, trying somewhat in vain to close the clasp on his now-full satchel.

"Whatever." Peter's brows sank inward now, finally noticing the satchel. "What's that for?"

"For carrying things in." said Edmund unhelpfully.

"Yes, I know that, why do you need to carry things?"

"Because I like carrying things." lied Edmund, snorting sarcastically. "It's great exercise."

"Ed," Peter was genuinely concerned now. To be honest, he had figured something wasn't quite right when King Frank told him that Edmund had refused to talk about future arrangements with the King of Ettinsmoor regarding Lucy, but he'd assumed it was something to do with nerves or whatever, and that his moody younger brother would snap out of it after a couple of hours.

"Peter, don't ask, okay?" Edmund begged, clenching his jaw and looking tense; he already knew what his brother was going to say.

"Edmund-"

"If you leave me alone right now, I'll tell you who started that rumor about you."

"What rumor?" Peter's forehead crinkled. "There aren't any rumors about me."

"There will be if you keep pushing it." Edmund warned him.

"Nice try, Ed, but you can't bully me, I'm the older brother-that's _my_ area of expertise."

"I'll keep that in mind." he huffed, tossing the satchel heavily onto a chair in the corner of the chamber.

"Hey, _I_ was going to be the ass today."

"Just today?" Edmund muttered grumpily.

"Edmund, I need to ask you something." said Peter, choosing to pretend he hadn't heard what Edmund had just said.

"No."

He went on anyway. "Do you care about Lucy?"

"I don't want to talk about this," said Edmund, instantly stiffening at the mention of her name.

"The king of Ettinsmoor isn't here every day, you realize that, right?"

"I really don't care where in this bloody world the king of Ettinsmoor is every day."

"What's the matter with you?" Peter demanded.

"Aslan and I had a talk yesterday, he's gotten the fairies to agree to pardon me, no more dancing-just ten more years of mandatory service to them and it's over." Edmund told his brother, folding his arms across his chest.

"Edmund, that's great!" Peter exclaimed, not understanding what the problem was. "Why are you so upset?"

"It means I have to go back to the fairy court and stay there for ten years."

Peter blinked rapidly. "Wait...what?"

"That part's sort of all right, actually, because it's just regular work-like Tumnus does. It's not a hard time." He bit onto his lower lip after he finished speaking.

"For ten years?" Peter still couldn't quite get over that bit of information.

"She is never going to wait ten years for me," Edmund said finally, knocking the satchel off the chair now with a heavy grunt and sitting down on it heavily, placing his face in his hands.

"Edmund, if you truly believe that," said Peter in a stern-but not unkind-voice, "then you don't know her at all, and there really is no hope for you."

"Peter," he said quietly as his brother turned to leave; "I don't want her to wait ten years, I want her to be happy."

Peter arched a brow at this. "And you don't think she'll be happy waiting?"

"I don't know," he admitted, glancing exasperatedly at the satchel on the floor as if it were _its_ fault he had to return to the fairy court. "But I know she'll be happy here, in Narnia, having a place in the future queen's household-and if someone-" somehow his face seemed smaller and his expression more helpless as he paused for a moment before going on, "-if someone...someone else came and...and she loved him, I wouldn't want to think she was waiting around just because she felt sorry for me, or else that she had some sort of obligation towards me. I don't want to make her promise anything."

"Don't you think-" started Peter.

"Trust me, I know what it's like to promise something because you want to do the right thing, and then suffer for it later. I would never do that to Lucy."

"Oh, Edmund, you really _do_ love her, don't you?"

He winced, wringing his hands as he pulled them close to his abdomen, letting them rest uneasily in his lap. "More than she'll ever know."


	20. The Unseen Wedding Guest

Fate, whether you believe in it, or you know it's nonsense and would rather come up with another word that does not yet exist to describe the strange veers life seems to enjoy taking on people with a little too much relish, is cruel sometimes. And it was indeed cruel towards Lucy, no excuses.

Prince Edmund of Narnia left Cair Paravel early one morning, distant and cold as ever, not even saying goodbye, his leather satchel tossed haphazardly over one shoulder. To his credit it was proven that he actually had said something resembling a proper goodbye to his brother and father, at the very least not leaving without letting his own family know first, though he said nothing to anyone else.

Although he never-to be fair-actually claimed he bid Lucy farewell, Peter seemed to think he had insinuated it and was rather shocked when the former little princess of Ettinsmoor, his soon-to-be sister-in-law asked him, in all seriousness, where Edmund was.

Of course Peter had done his best, with much stammering, to explain to the wide-eyed girl who stared blankly, half-gaping with an almost betrayed expression on her face, that Edmund had simply gone to work for the fairies for a few years, but it wasn't easy.

"But when is he coming back?" Lucy asked in a small voice, sounding as if she were trying very hard not to cry, her face having gone almost entirely white.

"Not for ten years, Lu." said Peter, with the rotten feeling that by saying so, even if it was the truth, he was breaking her heart. Maybe this was why Edmund hadn't said goodbye; maybe he couldn't handle it.

"He's gone for ten years and he..." she blinked and swallowed hard, trying to deal, trying to be brave, "...he didn't even..."

"I know, Lu, I'm sorry." Peter tried to comfort her, reaching out and touching the side of her arm. "I'm going to miss him, too," he added lamely at the end.

It wasn't only that, Lucy couldn't help thinking, it was all the more so that he hadn't even cared enough to tell her himself. She had believed them to be friends; she really loved Edmund as a companion, if not as something more, and had thought he had at least liked her.

Slowly the rage over being so easily forgotten began to melt, and she found that it had been holding up a wall around the pain of knowing she wouldn't see the prince she had rescued for a full decade; and as it dripped away, it let the sadness wash over her like rough winter-waves lapping mercilessly at a crumbling sea-wall. A small gasp yipped its way up her throat, tears falling down her face like rain.

"Lucy," Peter croaked through his own tears. Oh, how much he hated to see her like this!

Weeping steadily, Lucy threw her arms around Peter's middle and clung to him. Her tears soaked the front of his tunic as he tried to whisper that it was going to be fine, as he made empty murmured promises of everything turning out all right, reaching down and placing a hand on her head.

"Oh, Peter, I just wish I could have seen him once before he left." she sobbed, holding onto him tighter still.

"I know," he whispered, gently stroking her hair, "shh..."

Aside from the knowledge that the younger prince was gone, and would keep on being gone until a full decade had passed, life in Cair Paravel went on normally, even happily. It was strange to think of it; indeed, it was so bitter that it nearly made Lucy want to feel sick and she often had to busy herself with something whenever the thought came to her mind so as not to harp endlessly on it, but Edmund's suddenly not being there almost felt like he really _had_ died from his illness. If it weren't for Lucy, Peter, and Frank all believing unrelentingly that he was well and would one day-in ten years-return to Narnia, Susan might have come to believe in time that the whole adventure with the fairies and Lucy saving Edmund from his sickness was all a pretend game-or a dream.

This was not because she was closed-minded or thoughtless or stupid, for Susan was none of those things. It was, rather, that she was for ever the sort of person that saw in quite a narrow-eyed fashion the practicalities of a situation. If something extraordinary happened, and she saw it, she could believe it for a day or so unquestioningly with a bewildered expression on her face, but then-as time passed-she would try to rationalize it all. And, as any person who is familiar with fairy-stories knows, magical adventures cannot be explained. They can, however, believe it or not, be _exchanged_. Exchanged for the serious, hum-drum ways of the brain. One can convince oneself that they never saw or knew certain things until they truly believe it, unless, provided there is someone else there to reassure them that they are very wrong.

And so of course Peter was able to remind her that it had all happened, they had all really been at the court of the fairies, and that Edmund had not passed away. Lucy would often put in her oar, stating that if it weren't for the fairy-balls, she'd have never found the wand and Susan would still be suffering from the ugly-curse the Ice Countess had placed on her.

"Was I ever really so ugly?" asked Susan, very nearly having forgotten that, too. She still wasn't sure she really believed in witches; maybe Jadis wasn't really one after all, perhaps she had just imagined that.

Peter, wisely, had no comment-not wishing to offend her. But he knew that if it wasn't true, the two princesses of Ettinsmoor probably wouldn't have traveled to Cair Paravel to begin with.

"Su, don't you remember why we left Ettinsmoor?" Lucy asked her sister pointedly.

"Oh, it was such a long time ago!" said Susan airily, waving the question off.

Lucy's brows furrowed. "It was only six or seven months, ask Peter if you don't believe me."

"Six or seven months is a long time," Susan insisted stubbornly, although, with time, she came to believe her sister and betrothed-and to see that it had all really happened.

When she really concentrated on the memories, she knew it must be so, but other times she could be forgetful, so they learned to forgive her for that. Susan was, after all, not the sort who needed to think of fairies very often, and so such an adventure could be considered all but wasted on her in the long run.

In the meantime, there was a lot to do, wedding plans to make and arrangements to attend to. Somewhat against her will, Queen Helen was coming with the King of Ettinsmoor to the wedding, and Peter ordered the guards to make sure she stayed far away from Susan at all times. Also Lord and Lady Scrubb had to be talked out of inviting some disreputable Calormene Courtiers who had been caught red-handed in the slave-trade the last time they'd shown their rat-faces in Narnia to attend the ceremony. Susan was concerned with things such as where everyone would be seated and what sort of gowns her ladies would wear-she was very useful in these kinds of matters, more than that, she enjoyed the work.

As for Lucy, while she did more sewing than she fancied, her time wasn't so bad. She helped a few dwarfs who lived up in the further mountains make arrangements to attend the wedding by opening up the royal treasury (with King Frank's permission, of course) so that monies could be sent to them. One brain-dead courtier suggested that if so many dwarfs were to be invited, ought not a few fairies to be considered, too?

Lucy bit back a cry, for of course this made her think of Edmund.

King Frank, who had been sitting at her side when the request was made, said, "I don't think so. Fairies need no invitations, they tend to show up whenever they feel like it. And if you think I'm going to have this whole court put under some hundred year sleep because some demented fairy feels bad about not being mentioned in an invitation by name while her friends were-after all the trouble we've had with fairies lately-you've gone mad."

"So no fairies, then," said Lucy, in a calmer tone, having swallowed the lump in her throat at last; "they'll come if they like, or they wont. No invitations."

By the time everything was sorted, a full year since Edmund's departure had gone by, Lucy had turned fourteen, and the day for the crown prince's wedding had arrived like a thief in the night.

The grand hall was decorated and all the guests had arrived in more carriages and peculiar mounts than Lucy had ever seen in her whole life. The stables were full of dwarf-sized ponies, winged stallions, over-sized monkeys, unicorns, donkeys, mules, large dogs, even a big lizard and an elephant or two. Some of the finer carriages were made of gold and silver, but there were others that were plain and not nearly so nice to look at, made of simple woods with no jewels or carved designs.

The people themselves were more interesting, Lucy thought; more so the Narnian ones (dryads and naiads and such) as opposed to the old Ettinsmoor-bred friends and ladies whom Susan had invited probably at the last minute, as an after-thought. Even if some of them did have very stylish dresses.

Watching from corners and arched doorways, the younger Ettinsmoor princess, now a lady in the soon-to-be queen of Narnia's household, was a little curious to see if any of the fairy folk would actually turn up. Just as King Frank had suggested, none had been invited by name, so as not to ask for trouble, but she wondered if she might spot one or two who arrived by their own merits, however many mixed feelings she had about them. Part of her was interested, still, in fairies and their ways; while another part of her blamed them for Edmund not being in Narnia anymore. She wondered also if they arrived just by appearing or if they took grand carriages of their own.

After a while, she got tired of waiting around, and the sound of the wedding music beginning alerted her to the fact that she was supposed to be at her sister's side, one of the ladies who held her seven-inch, white-and-gold velvet train with hundreds of seed-pearls sewn into it. She dashed off and arrived at her sister's chamber just in time.

"Nervous?" she asked Susan playfully when she arrived breathless at the other ladies-in-waiting's sides, ready to help.

Susan blushed.

"No," she lied shortly, believing that a high-born princess ought never to fear her own marriage, especially if it was between countries who were friends and to a prince she was fond of.

"Uh-huh," Lucy rolled her eyes.

"I can't do this!" Susan blurted out suddenly, her serenity faded and her face in a full-on panic now. "What was I thinking?"

"That you're getting married?" a flighty lady-in-waiting who hadn't expected this said unsurely, thinking it was a trick question.

"This is a mistake," whimpered Susan; looking quite pitiful at the moment. "Why am I doing this?"

"Because you love him," Lucy reminded her consolingly, letting go of the heavy train and patting her sister on the arm, "and he's waiting for you."

"Oh." she took a deep breath. "You're right, I'm over-reacting."

Lucy nodded and picked up her sister's train again with the help of two other ladies of the future queen's employment. "All right, let's go."

Susan took four steps then stopped moving altogether, her face on the pale side.

"Susan, why did you stop moving?" Lucy whispered shortly, not because she was cross but because the train felt heavier when Susan wasn't walking, and the other ladies turned out to be sort of weaklings, letting the bride's younger sister bear the most weight.

"Don't rush me!" Susan snapped, her lips turned up into slight snarl.

"You're not even walking down the aisle yet!" protested Lucy. "We're still two corridors away!"

Susan pouted. "Details, details."

"Come on," Lucy flashed a warm, reassuring smile, "Peter's waiting for you."

"What if he changes his mind?"

"He's not going to change his mind," Lucy told her.

"What's she mean 'change his mind'?" the lady to Lucy's left whispered.

"Maybe she means he'll say 'I don't' instead of 'I do'?" suggested another lady-who, by the way, was a bit of an up-talker.

"Oh, by the Lion, what if he _does_?" gasped Susan, not thinking clearly.

"He wont!" Lucy exclaimed, shooting the lady a scowl for saying that.

"Maybe he doesn't like me," Susan said in a timid voice.

"He _loves_ you, you know that!" Lucy wondered if Lady Jill Pole was going to be this difficult when she was old enough to get married.

"You're right, he loves me and I love him, and we're getting married." Susan forced a smile and tried to remind herself that everything was going to be fine.

"Susan, you're still not moving," Lucy reminded her.

"I'm pausing for dramatic effect!" she lied grumpily.

Finally, after a bit of effort, Lucy managed her duty of getting her elder sister, the Princess Susan, to her wedding.

When he saw her enter, Peter smiled and Susan looked down with such shy modesty that even Lord and Lady Scrubb were momentarily appeased and could not find anything vexing to say about their future queen for the time being.

A trumpet blew and the ceremony was finally able to start. Peter noticed that Duke Eustace Clarence, who was his best man, and while he felt guilty about thinking such a thing about his own cousin, was quite possibly the worst best man in the history of best men, was doing nothing, not even making sure that the beavers carrying their crowns and rings on the purple silken pillows actually _had_ the crowns and rings. In fact, there was a minor disaster when one of the rings fell off the pillow and rolled away and the beaver, searching for it, accidentally slapped his tail against the low-ranging faces of about three or four sour black dwarfs. All this, Duke Clarence took no note of.

If Peter had been in a more teasing mood, perhaps if it had been someone else's wedding and not his own, he would have teased his cousin, claiming that he couldn't concentrate because he couldn't tear his eyes away from Lady Pole in her new wine-coloured gown. Which, actually, was more or less true, but even so he wasn't in any position to pick on his best man. He couldn't help thinking that Edmund would have teased Eustace, getting him back for all those bets they'd had as little children, and felt a little lonely for a moment, remembering his brother.

He snapped back into attention when Susan was standing on the dais at his side, smiling shyly at him and Lucy-still holding the train along with the other ladies-was silently praying her sister didn't have another break-down and whimper, "This is a mistake." in front of all the wedding guests. Thankfully, Susan didn't seem to have any intention of doing so; she seemed a lot more relaxed and like her regular practical self when the bridegroom in question was actually present.

The beaver finally got the ring back and Peter breathed a sigh of relief. Things were going well.

A speech was given, rings were exchanged, vows were said, and then finally Peter was supposed to place the queen's crown on his bride's head as a sign that she would eventually be ruling along side him when he became the Narnian's king. She was wearing a thick silk-and-fur hood lightly lined with crystal beads along the side instead of a veil (she had developed a loathing for veils as of late), so it was easy enough to gently lift it off and to place the small sun-coloured, autumn-leaves-shaped circlet on her head.

Everyone cheered-even the black dwarfs.

Queen Helen clapped superficially and everybody knew it, except for maybe her husband the King, who beamed at his daughter and her bridegroom with pleasure and whispered much too loudly, "Didn't I once tell you she could have a crown prince?" not even noticing her bitter expression.

When she was finally able to let go of Susan's train, Lucy rubbed her wrists and happened to glance over to the back of the room where she thought she saw three figures standing together, watching the remainder of the wedding.

One was a small girl who looked very much like little Gael; another was a faun, looking rather as she imagined a slightly more stout Master Tumnus might; and the last, the most surprising and puzzling, stood clearly in the middle of them. This figure seemed just like Edmund only he was a half-foot taller and not as painfully thin as the boy Lucy remembered saving.

She blinked and the other two were gone, but she thought she still saw Edmund standing there. Eagerly, she whipped her head around to glance over at Peter, wanting to know if he had noticed his brother, too, only to find that even when his eyes drifted over the spot she knew she saw Edmund standing at, he didn't seem to see him.

How strange, thought Lucy, forgetting for the time being that a year ago Edmund had left without so much as saying a quick goodbye to her, and deciding to go over to him the first chance got.

That chance did not come until the feast, there were so many ladyships' duties to carry out at such an important wedding, and she worried that he would be gone by the time she reached him. Thankfully, though, there he still was, watching from corners, not even attempting to join in with the rest of them. Lucy wondered why that was and resolved to ask him once she reached his side.

"Edmund," she chirped joyfully at his side, a little too softly for him to hear her clearly.

He turned around and looked right at her; she smiled at him and she saw him smile back, but he didn't even try to say anything.

Confused, knowing now if she hadn't before, that something was amiss, she reached out and touched his arm, horrified to find that her hand went right through it as if he were nothing but a trick of light-as if he wasn't really there.

"Edmund?" Lucy tried again, sounding a little scared this time.

He was still looking right at her; but now his smile had turned into an expression of concern. "You can see me?"

"Y-y-yes?" she stammered, taking a fearful step backwards.

Seeing how much his unexplained presence was frightening her, Edmund whispered, "It's all right, meet me on the balcony in a few minutes and I'll explain."

Lucy nodded, biting onto her lower lip. "Okay."

When she went out to the balcony, he was standing there. It was a little chilly, yet he did not appear to notice this, standing casually gazing out to the eastern sea while she shivered.

He noticed her starting to rub her arms. "Come here."

A little shakily she came, surprised when he wrapped his arms around her, draping part of his cloak over her shoulders. It didn't feel at all like a real person holding onto her would have felt, it was too light-less weight than a feather-and while it didn't go clean through her like light this time, perhaps because it was _his_ effort, it was warmer.

"Better?"

Lucy nodded. "How is it that you're here, Edmund?"

"Well, that's just it, I'm not."

"What?"

"I'm back at the fairy-court, fast asleep."

"But how-"

"There's a drink fairies can make, awful powerful stuff, that can transport a person as an apparition to any place they like while they're asleep." Edmund explained, unable to hold back a slight grin. "And I thought it would be such a shame to miss my own brother's wedding."

"They can't see you, though, Peter and Susan, I mean..." said Lucy, uncertainly.

"No, they can't, I even tried throwing an acorn at Peter's head-didn't even faze him."

Lucy giggled, not sure if he was serious or not. "Why can I see you?"

He shrugged and a little bit of the warmth lifted up before settling down on her again. "I don't know."

"Ed," her voice was soft, almost tearful, now; "Why didn't you say goodbye when you left? Don't you like me anymore?"

His face fell and if he wasn't an apparition and could have made tears, he might have cried. "Lucy, of course I like you."

"You barely talked to me and then you just left..."

"I didn't want you to think you had any...obligations..."

Lucy craned her neck to look up at him with a brow lowered in confusion. "What?"

"I didn't want you to think you had to wait."

"Wait for what?" Lucy asked, honestly not able to guess.

He laughed, not cruelly, but loudly enough. "Lucy! You seriously have no idea what I'm talking about?"

"No." her voice was so small and innocent that he almost wanted to kiss her for it.

"I didn't want you to think you had to wait around and then...when I came back...we'd have to...you know, get married or something."

"Married?" Lucy pulled away and gaped at his apparition.

"Well..." Edmund quickly discovered that apparitions could blush, as he blurted out the whole story of how he loved her and didn't want her to be unhappy.

"But I love _you_ , too," Lucy said in a small, almost whispery tone when she had heard him out. "I don't mind waiting."

"But for ten-well, nine, now-years?" Edmund reminded her.

"I don't mind, I can be happy here in Narnia, Ed." She was caught with a longing to stroke his cheek, but her hand went right through it when she tried.

"If someone else came along-" he tried.

She shook her head. There was no one else; there was only the boy she had followed for three nights to the fairy-court; she couldn't love anyone else, not in that way.

"I see," Edmund felt sort of stupid now for not speaking to her before he left Cair Paravel.

"And you can come back here and visit...with the fairy drink...as an apparition, can't you?"

At this, he looked pained. "It will only work once, and I cannot get any more."

Fear gripped her. "You didn't bargain with them again, tell me you didn't!"

"I didn't," he assured her, "I swear I didn't. I got it because the fairy who made it made too much and it was left over. They were throwing it away, dumping it out of a window-I caught it in my flask, the one the fairy queen gave me the magical cordial in all those years ago, as I was passing by."

"Oh." Lucy looked down.

"So when I disappear...you wont see me again for nine years...do you understand?"

"Yes."

"It will be all right, you'll see." He wrapped his arms around her again, noticing that the cold air was making her cheeks a little pinched.

"I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you, too, Lucy."

They stood there for a while before she said, "Edmund, when are you going to disappear?"

"Whenever I wake up at the fairy-court." he answered.

"You'll stay here with me until then?"

"Of course!"

"Thank you," she whispered.

A few moments later Peter came onto the balcony, telling Lucy it was too cold out there for her at the moment and that Susan said to get back inside before she caught her death.

"I'll be right in, Peter," promised Lucy, "but tell me something first: can you see anyone else here?"

Peter shook his head and laughed nervously. "Um, no."

"Hey, Pete, fancy wedding you've got here." Edmund said just to be smart.

"There!" exclaimed Lucy, her eyes shinning brightly. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Forget it, Lu, he doesn't know I'm here." Edmund said lightly, not at all surprised.

"Peter," Lucy said, walking off the balcony with the unseen Edmund at her side.

"Yes, what is it?"

"I-" she knew where this was heading, she knew how this always went. Peter wouldn't believe her, and she might not have a lot of time with Edmund left so she shouldn't waste it. "-nothing...just congratulations."

They had another hour together, Edmund and Lucy, until he started to wake up. She saw him starting to vanish and fought the urge to weep, not wanting that to be the last image he had of her in his mind.

"You wont forget me?" Lucy made sure.

"Never!" Edmund touched her shoulder one last time. "I'll be back in nine years if..."

"I'll be here." Lucy swore, promising with everything she held dear.

"Edmund..." he could hear someone who sounded like Tumnus waking him up and he thought he felt little fingers pulling at his hair.

For a moment, even Lucy could see the figure of the little fairy-child, Gael who'd gotten into a habit of trotting after Prince Edmund of Narnia like a puppy during his first year with the fairies, and that of Tumnus, telling his charge it was time to wake up, that they had some work to do. Then, a speck of dust hit her eye. Lucy blinked; and when she opened her eyes, she could see nothing beyond the realm Narnia was in, and Edmund was gone again.

But there was one difference. This time he'd said goodbye; this time he had left her with hope.


	21. Epilogue

_Nine years later..._

She never did understand how she had missed a day-a full day! Lucy had been counting down, for nine years, day by day, until he was coming back, and somehow or other her calculations were off. And so, she wasn't expecting him just yet.

Oh, she knew he was coming soon all right, and that thought made her so giddy with joy that she felt like she might burst; but one thing she had learned about fairies was that they were very exact about times and that they weren't likely to release the prince of Narnia who had been serving them for the last decade so much as a half-second before they had to.

Because she suspected he would come either the next day or the day after that, at latest, and the hours were going by much too slowly for her, Lucy agreed to go hunting for the magical white stag with her brother-in-law and her sister; now king and queen of Narnia (King Frank was not dead, just sort of old and retired, having passed down his rights to the throne to his son a good five years back).

Supposedly whomever caught the white stag was given a wish, and whenever the creature was spotted, it was royal sport for the nobility to go after it. Lucy had but one wish; that chasing the creature into the sunset would pass the time and carry her longing heart closer to her Edmund.

Peter and Susan, happily married (most of the time) for nine years, had no major wishes of their own, either. They had a country, a throne, and two little ones back at the Cair Paravel nursery kicking up daily rows. Needing nothing more, it was purely tradition and wanting some fresh air that made them go after the stag (well that and Susan wanted to wear her new grayish-purple velvet hunting habit because it had a bold, striking affect against old Isbjorn's white coat).

A good number of courtiers tagged along thinking it would be splendid to have a picnic in the forest by a nice bank, sipping out of golden goblets and eating castle pastries in the great outdoors. Among these were the newly wedded Duke Clarence and Duchess Pole Clarence of Dragon Island. Lucy had been one of the bride's ladies at the wedding almost a year ago.

Most of the castle-folk had thought that after the marriage ceremony was over with, the duke would take his bride back to the Dragon Islands, but that was not to be. Instead, King Peter made Eustace a knight, and Jill was too valued in Queen Susan's household to be permitted to leave. At any rate, the weather on Dragon Island was said to be quite poor, and they probably didn't really want to go there anyhow. There was some talk of banishing Lord and Lady Scrubb and marooning them on that island, but that was-supposedly-only a joke.

Back at the fairy-court, Edmund, knowing his time was up, packed his things to leave. The Lord Regent allowed Tumnus to go and live at Cair Paravel with his charge provided the other fauns stayed behind, which really was quite generous of the regent considering he did not very much like Edmund at all, even after ten years.

Gael, now a young fairy-lady with long dark hair she wore up in a wreath of azure-and-white seed-gemstones, still adored Edmund, though clearly in a different way than she had when she was small, and even asked if he would forfeit going back and marry her instead.

The first time she put this proposition to him, he was stunned, but he held his ground and explained to her that he was precontracted to another. For all those nine years without faltering he had considered himself betrothed to Lucy of Ettinsmoor (Lucy of Narnia, now that her sister was queen) and wouldn't have even imagined taking another for his wife.

"Besides," he told her in as kind a tone as possible. "There is something of an age difference between you and me."

"You're only twenty-four," she reminded him; she was in her teenaged years already.

"And my Lucy is perhaps only twenty-three," Edmund said pointedly.

"I suppose if I offered to go back with you, it would not make much difference?" she asked softly.

"None; I am sorry, Gael, I thought we were just friends-you never said anything..."

"I couldn't," explained Gael, looking down at her feet with a surprisingly human-like emotion on her clearly very fairyish face; "you were a servant and I was only a child."

"You'll be all right," Edmund spoke to her like a brother addressing a baby sister or a father speaking to a favourite child-the same tone Peter always used with Lucy. "I'm sure you'll find happiness here at the fairy-court; this is where you belong."

"Lucy is a fortunate woman." Gael sighed, smiling at him with a younger smile, one with no romantic affection, only friendship and general warmth.

"Goodbye, Gael." Edmund leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

"You wont forget me?"

He smiled distantly, remembering Lucy saying the same thing. "Do I ever forget anything I say to a fairy?"

"If I'm ever in Narnia, I'll come visit-you and Tumnus...and I'm sure you'll be married by then, so your wife, too."

"Sounds like a plan." Edmund told her.

"Edmund?" She took a step forward to keep up with him before he walked away for good.

"Yes?"

There was one more thing she really wanted him to know before he left. "I _am_ glad you're free now-even if it means you go away."

"Thank you," and he meant it, for truthfully, Gael was the only fairy he had ever met who cared about his happiness.

Edmund never did see Gael again after that. He had no idea what became of her after so many years, but he assumed she forgot him after a while, much as she might have tried to remember, and-while she was a late bloomer-eventually became just like the other fairies at the court.

Meanwhile, Lucy lagged behind the hunting party as they pursued a flash of snowy-white they all believed to be the stag galloping off into the distance. They were all laughing merrily and Lucy laughed right along with them until the sounds of their mirth became less clear and she realized just how much slower she was going.

It wasn't her fault, though, not really. One of her feet were bothering her; something was caught in her shoe. She might have called after the others to wait, but they were so far ahead already and she didn't wish to slow them down-perhaps one of them really would catch the white stag. Wouldn't that be something?

Sighing deeply, she got down from her horse (a small brownish bay) and patted its neck to reassure it that they would catch up with the others later, that there was nothing to worry about.

Next, she sat down and lifted her ruby-coloured, floor-length hunting gown and habit over her foot and removed her shoe, letting a round white pebble bounce out.

"How did that get in there?" she wondered aloud, shaking her head, dusting herself off as she got up again.

The bay neighed anxiously, having seen and heard something-someone-its mistress hadn't. Lucy was surprised; her horse was not normally very skittish.

"Hello?" she called nervously.

Something glittering on a nearby fir-tree caught her eye, it was small and bright, hard, seemingly-solid silver. Lucy knew she had seen something like that before. It was a crackernut; more than that, it was _the_ crackernut. The first crackernut she had swiped on the way to the fairy-court when she'd followed Edmund; the one she'd wanted to keep as proof; the one the young prince had stolen away from her to protect his secret. She wasn't sure _how_ she knew this-after all, one crackernut really looks in general no different from another-but somehow she did. There was a thin silver necklace-chain it had been hung on like a pedant, and that was what was fastened to the tree branch.

"It can't be..." murmured Lucy, stepping forward and reaching for the crackernut.

From behind the tree, a hand reached out just as hers touched the silver nut, closing over it gently. "I guess it was my turn to follow you through the trees."

Lucy's eyes widened as a tall, dark-haired young man of twenty-four dressed in a pale-coloured doublet and a purple cape, a silver prince's crown on his head, stepped out and grinned at her, his grip on her hand tightening ever so slightly.

"Edmund!" she exclaimed, knowing him at once. It didn't matter that he was older now; she could still see the boy she'd followed for three nights looking out through this man's eyes.

It was much the same for Edmund. He had known her face the second he'd seen her fall behind the others, when he'd silently stolen after them after returning to Cair Paravel to find they had all gone out. She was older; but he thought she seemed very much the same, and that pleased him.

"Call me crazy," Edmund teased her with a gleam in his eye, raising a brow. "but I thought more people would be awaiting my return."

"I thought you were coming...maybe tomorrow..." Lucy felt her cheeks redden.

"Here," he let go of her hand and lifted the crackernut necklace off of the fir tree.

Lucy pulled her hair over one shoulder so he could reach over and fasten it around her neck. When the little gleaming nut hung just above her breasts, Edmund leaned in to kiss her cheek.

She turned her head a split-second too soon and he made contact with her lips instead. Which, needless to say, was fine by him. He slipped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer, while he could feel her hands reaching behind his neck, holding onto him as tightly as possible. It was apparent that both of them were crying, because both felt the occasional tear dripping down into their collars.

"Ahem," a little voice coughed.

They broke apart; and noticed middle-aged Master Tumnus standing there next to Phillip who looked both ways in an almost witless fashion, like a talking horse does when he is trying not to laugh.

"Master Tumnus!" Lucy laughed happily, embracing the faun, glad to see him safe and well.

"The fairies have let him come back to Narnia for good." Edmund told her.

"Oh, I _am_ glad!" Lucy said joyfully, smiling over at Edmund again, unable to stop staring at him.

"Come on," Edmund took her hand again and swung her up onto Phillip's back; "Tumnus can take your horse back to Cair, and we'll go and meet up with the others."

"Duke Clarence is married to Lady Pole, she's a duchess now, did you hear?" Lucy asked Edmund as he climbed up onto his horse behind her, slipping his arms around her to reach the reins.

He looked genuinely surprised. "Really? I hadn't heard, no one at the fairy-court mentioned it. Figures, though. He always was a jolly sight too keen on making goggle eyes at her during royal banquets."

Lucy giggled. "Oh, Ed! Don't tease him."

Edmund's eyes widened with faux-innocence. " _Me_? Tease _him_? Lucy, I'd never!"

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Of course not...not even to get back at him for making you swim naked in the moat?"

"Hey, wait a minute!" Edmund's brows sank into his forehead. "How do you know about that?"

"Uh..." Lucy stammered, "I just...heard..."

"Peter told you, didn't he?" Edmund scowled.

Lucy gave in. "All right, yes, he told me."

"Wait until I get a hold of him..." he muttered, shaking his head.

"He's a bit bigger than when you last saw him, Ed, he's grown." Lucy warned him.

"Doesn't matter," Edmund said, "I'll still wring his neck for telling you about that."

"No, seriously, he's grown-up now, two children and a beard."

"A beard?" Edmund seemed amused by this. "Really?"

"Well, Susan asked him to grow one..." Lucy explained, sighing lightly.

"I see." said Edmund, trying not to laugh out loud picturing his elder brother with a beard.

"It doesn't look that bad," Lucy defended Peter.

"This is going to be fun." Edmund decided, kissing his betrothed's cheek and urging Phillip onward with a light nudge from one heel.

...And they all lived happily ever after.

~The End~


End file.
